Domestic car sales and the export of vehicles have improved over the past three months, industry’s experts said.
Toyota Motor Thailand, the industry’s market leader, said on Monday that domestic car sales have reached 59,335 units in July, up from 58,013 units in June and 40,418 in May.
Surasak Suthongwan, the company’s executive vice president, said the recovery was led by the relaxing lockdown measures and the reopening of businesses which started in May.
The government’s measures to promote domestic tourism have also led to more demand for cars in July, he added.
However, the 59,335 units that were sold in July still represents a drop of 26.8 per cent when compared to the same period in 2019.
For the first seven months of 2020, domestic car sales reached 387,939 units, down by 35.9 per cent year-on-year.
The sales of passenger cars dropped by 42.2 per cent year-on-year while the sales of commercial vehicles dropped by 31.7 per cent year-on-year.
Surasak said the domestic sales market should continue to improve in August with the reopening of businesses and social activities such as car exhibitions like the Motor Show 2020 in July and the ongoing BIG Motor Sale 2020.
The 41st Bangkok International Motor Show attracted more than one million participants over the 14-day event which resulted in 22,791 bookings. Of that, 18,381 units were orders for cars and 4,410 were orders for motorbikes.
Honda Forza 350 was the most popular model with 907 orders and AP Honda had a total of 1,549 units during the exhibition period.
Surapong Paisitpatanapong, the vice-chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) and spokesperson of its Automotive Club, told Thai Enquirer that the contractions in domestic car sales and exports have reduced, which reflects the industry’s gradual recovery.
“The contraction in domestic car sales will continue to be lower in line with the relaxation of the government’s lockdown measures,” he said.
“At the same, the relief packages such as the cash handout, soft loans and tax holidays for businesses and individuals who were affected by the outbreak, worth about 1.9 trillion baht, are also beginning to spread out as well,” he added.
Exports
Surapong said the recovery is still marginal. Normally, the production for exports would account for at least 54 per cent of the total output of around 2 million cars per year. That ratio was down to 48 per cent in July.
“This shows that the demand for cars in other countries is still being hampered by the pandemic compared to the outbreak situation in Thailand which has improved and it is contributing to the gradual increase in domestic demand,” he said.
According to FTI’s data, Thailand produced 89,336 vehicles in July, down by 47.7 per cent year-on-year. Of that, 47.71 per cent were meant for exports and 47.98 per cent were meant for domestic sales.
This brings the total production during the first seven months of 2020 to 695,468 units, declining by 43.7 per cent year-on-year.
For domestic car sales, the FTI data recorded that 59,335 units have been sold in July, dropping by 24.8 per cent year-on-year.
This brings the total domestic car sales during the first seven months to 379,123 units, down by 35.6 per cent year-on-year.
For exports, the FTI data recorded that Thailand exported 49,564 units in July, falling by 39.67 per cent year-on-year.
The total export of cars during the first seven months is thus 400,114 units, down by 33.3 per cent year-on-year.
By countries, sales to Europe, Brazil, the US and Japan dropped by 39.5, 38.9, 23.8 and 20.1 per cent respectively.
Surapong told Thai Enquirer that the industry is maintaining a production target of 1.4 million units in 2020 which is lower than the 2 million units that were produced in 2019.
Of the 1.4 million, 700,000 units will be for exports and 700,000 will be for domestic sales, he added.
“The domestic sales target is realistic based on current demand here but the export target will largely depend on the outbreak situations abroad,” he said.
“If the easing of the lockdown leads to a second outbreak in other countries or here then the targets will have to be revised again. The next game-changer is the vaccine because once it is found, countries will no longer have to reopen and re-lockdown over and over again,” he added.
