This is crazy news - Honda has overtaken Toyota for the top passenger car sales spot in the Thailand market for the first time ever in history. Honda sold 193,185 passenger cars in Thailand while Toyota sold 190,101, which is about 3,000 units less than Honda. It might seem like a close gap to you, but these numbers represent an 18.2% increase year on year for Honda but a 15.4% drop for Toyota.
Toyota attributes the lowered performance in the passenger car market to the Toyota Corolla's end of life. Production was reduced to make way for the new Toyota Corolla, which was just launched here in Malaysia this week. Thailand exports the Corolla to Malaysia as well as other destinations such as Australia.
"We lost and that is not good, but on the other hand we couldn't help it, as the Yaris came out only during the final two months while Honda was able to capitalise on its eco-car during the whole year," said Kyoichi Tanada, president of Toyota Motor Thailand Co.
The Toyota Yaris helped Toyota sales pick up in the last two months of 2013, closing the 18,000 unit gap that Honda had built up against Toyota in the first three quarters of the year. Toyota continued to lead the pick-up market, selling 236,751 units head of Isuzu's 183,079 units.
Honda made gains against Toyota in the Malaysian passenger car market in 2013 as well. Honda sales increased from 34,950 units in 2012 to 51,544 units in 2013, while Toyota sales dropped from 74,171 units in 2012 to 61,409 units in 2013, finishing the year with a 10,000 unit lead.
This of course doesn't include commercial vehicles. If you include that in, Toyota has a comfortable lead over Honda at 91,185 units in total compared to Honda's 51,544.
No comments:
Post a Comment