Auto-makers to hit fast lane in 2011

Car manufacturers expect upbeat sales during 2011’s remainder.

According to Euro Auto BMW’s marketing director Nguyen Dang Thao, a year’s last four months often contributed a big chunk of auto firms’ full-year revenue.

“Reality shows that customers often make their car buying decisions at this point in time. Therefore, car firms expect rosy sales figures,” Thao said.

Euro Auto BMW is set to achieve its 2011 target of selling around 800 imported brand-new cars, a jump of 35 per cent on-year.

Vietnam was becoming BMW’s fastest growing market in the region, said Thao.

Toyota Motors Vietnam (TMV) was on track with its set plan, according to TMV’s marketing director Tatsuya Kijimoto.

TMV sold out 19,059 cars in the first eight months of 2011 against 18,982 units in the same period of 2010. The increase was slight since TMV had to scale down production to 70 per cent of its capacity from April 25 to June 3, 2011 in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. (Its factory could only run at 100 per cent capacity from July 4.

“The car market faces more difficulties this year, but people’s demand for vehicles still remains high so that 2012’s market perspective looks encouraging,” said the TMV executive.

Statistics show that Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA) member firms sold an aggregated 70,650 cars in January-August, surging 2 per cent against the same period in 2010 with cars jumping 28.9 per cent in volume, multi-purpose vehicles hiked 4 per cent while commercial vehicles sagged 13 per cent.

Industry experts assumed the sales figures truly reflected customers’ current appetite for cars. Relative to declining commercial car numbers, they said squeezing credit led to stagnant production and trading at local firms, casting certain impacts on commercial car sales. Besides, commercial cars are often bought with bank loans, meanwhile the door to such loans is restricted at banks following government’s strong determination to control inflation and ensure macroeconomic stability. – VIR

Tags: Vietnam automotive, Vietnam automotive industry, Vietnam autos market