Honda Automobile Thailand has revealed its sales figures for 2017, and the brand has maintained its top spot in passenger car sales for the third year running.
Minus commercial vehicles and pick-up trucks, which Honda is not represented, the company sold 127,768 units in 2017, up 19% from 2016. Honda’s market share for passenger cars is 32.2%. In the overall Thai auto market, Honda remained third with a 14.7% share, up 0.7%. The company launched five new models in 2017, and they were the City facelift, Civic Hatchback, fifth-gen CR-V, Jazz facelift and Mobilio facelift.
In the subcompact segment, Honda captured 49.4% market share with sales of 58,315 units, with the booted City (34,955 units) leading the hatchback Jazz (23,360). The next segment up saw Honda taking more than half of the pie at 50.9% – the Civic FC sedan found 24,432 homes while the niche Civic Hatchback managed 3,016 units.
With overall market leader Toyota not involved, as is the case in Malaysia, Honda enjoyed 61.2% market in the SUV segment with 32,690 units sold – HR-V 15,371 units, CR-V 11,232 units and BR-V 6,087 units. One segment where Honda isn’t very strong is the eco car class, where Toyota dominates with the recently revamped Yaris hatchback and Yaris Ativ sedan.
Thailand’s auto market is still rebounding from a low and 2017’s total industry volume was 870,000 units, up 13%, the highest growth seen in the past five years. Honda expects Thai TIV to touch 900,000 units this year, although its own sales is expected to remain at a similar level – the company’s forecast for 2018 is 127,000 units.
In Malaysia, Honda exceeded its 2017 target to achieve 109,511 units last year, which isn’t that far away from Thai figures despite us being a smaller market. It was the highest ever sales for the brand in Malaysia and also the first time that sales breached the 100k mark. The 19% growth pushed Honda’s overall local market share to 19%, based on internal data. The Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) will release official TIV figures this week.
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Toyota will need to relook whole SEA strategy before too late..(it’s still small compare to US/EU anyhow)..
Toyota auto components colossal profits yo’
Vtec kicks in yo!!
Toyota has the last laugh. I was thinking Honda is champions in Thailand, turns out they are not.
Toyota Thailand has huge fleet sales including taxis (Altis, Camry) & rental cars (Yaris, Vios, Altis, Camry) . Something Honda Thailand doesn’t participate in & promises the end consumers that they will Never do.
That is why Thai consumers prefer to buy passenger cars from any other brand but Toyota.
I landed in Bangkok I saw Toyota Altis teksis all lined up. I took one and they guy told me, Altis is so affordable in Thailand.
I told him in Malaysia, only orang kaya can use Altis. He was so shocked he nearly met an accident.
Neatly met accident? Why? Pedal stucked to floor mat or unintentional speeding?
lol
Toyota is Thai pseudo national car.
Nobody would think like you.We all knew Thailand is strong in commercial vehicles and trucks thus Honda not represents into.All of us still thinking Honda can’t be No 1 overall in Thailand in 2017..but only you thought so.Obviously your knowledge in auto industry is questionable.
One wonders why Honda Thailand doesn’t just bring in or assemble and sell the Ridgeline pickup?
I can tell you why. Mainly 3 reasons:
1. Ridgeline is not a true truck. It is built on a unibody platform exactly like all cars and most urban-use-only SUV and crossovers . Unibody platform weakness is you lose alot of payload of a typical ladder-frame platform which is used by most trucks, and you lose most of the offroad capabilities because ladder frame chassis allow more bending and twisting motions on uneven terrains like rock crawling in the jungle.
2. Ridgeline has no diesel engine option. Only a non-turbo 3.5L V6 petrol engine. So all SEA countries definitely will not buy something that is so thirsty since petrol engines for such heavy vehicle is a very bad idea. The only good thing is the refinement from the petrol engine as there is no diesel clatter and you rev higher. If you have a 3.5L truck in Peninsular Malaysia, you have to pay RM2.4k a year for roadtax alone which most people are not willing to fork out.
3. Size does matter. Ridgeline was designed for Americans which have big appetite for larger trucks. It was meant as a competitor for Toyota Tacoma and Chevrolet Silverado and Ford Raptor. This is not Toyota Hilux size truck, but much larger. Parking is a huge problem for most SEA countries, most of them are not catered for such a long and wide vehicle like these mid-size trucks.
Honda Japan sales boom is a global phenomenon. Not limited to drb Honda.
But Honda still small globally. Around top 10 only
Those Toyota fanboys who still thinks Toyota is no.1 in Thailand clearly doesn’t understand the statistics reported. Commercial vehicles aside, which HONDA doesn’t participate in, HONDA is No.1 in Thailand and some say in Malaysia too. Hahaha!
still no civic hatch =(