Domestic car sale for the second half is expected to remain sluggish



BANGKOK: -- Domestic automobile market for the second half of the year is likely to remain sluggish as economic slowdown is expected to drag on.

The above grim prospect for the car industry was predicted by Mr Pitak Pruetthisarikorn, chief operating officer of Honda Automobile (Thailand) Company.

For the first five months of this year, Honda car sale was registered at slightly over 300,000 units or 60,000 units per month. Mr Pitak estimated that, for the whole year, total Honda car sale was expected to reach 800,000 mark.

He pointed out that the restructuring of car tax which is due to come into force next year and was expected to boost car sale this year would not be a key factor for the growth of the car market “because buying new cars is not the first priority of most consumers.”

Sale promotion, he said, is just a matter of formality and will not help much to improve car sale this year. “We do not hope car sale will rise. But we hope that the economy will recover,” he added.

(Photo : Thai PBS File)

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/domestic-car-sale-for-the-second-half-is-expected-to-remain-sluggish

-- Thai PBS 2015-07-01

Surely these figures are for total domestic car sales and not just Honda. If they are going to sell 500,000 units over the last 7 months of the year, monthly sales will have to increase to over 70,000. Good luck with that.

The taxes on a new car must be horrendous. I've never figured out how many taxes are levied, from import duties on raw materials and parts to direct taxes on the manufacturer and buyer.

All I know is that I bought a new F150 4x4 supercrew (4 door) V8 well equipped Ford pickup in the US for less than 1 mil baht all in, out the door.

Completely bogus numbers attributed to Honda . useless journalism.

The figures for Honda car sales for the first 5 months (June figures not released yet) is 52,378. Total for all makes 233,778.

Maybe they meant 'vehicles' so if you include Honda bikes (597,657 for first 5 months) then the reported figure is about right! A bit of a stretch i know!!

The Prayut administration is planning to give tax breaks to new car owners to help boost domestic sales.

Prayut after the coup wanted it written into the constitution to forbid populist policies. Now there doesn't seem to be an industry where he doesn't enact one.