Top 5 Brands that Ruled Thai Auto Market in 2015

BANGKOK: Thailand Automotive Industry, also known as “Detroit of Southeast Asia” has seen an exponential growth and its been consistently developing for over 50 years. Being one of the largest automotive producer amidst all Southeastern countries and with the great coordination between public sector and private sector to formulate the Master Plan for domestic auto industry, Thailand is slowly emerging as the automotive hub of ASEAN. With the rise of domestic automotive production by 4.38% and 7.76% on a monthly basis from the domestic production last year, Thai Automotive Industry stood at the capacity of 2 million units and exports at 1.2 million in October. The hike in production was on account of the impressive exports of Thailand based vehicles.

On the other hand, Thailand is facing a fallout in terms of world's automotive production ranking and automotive sales. It has slipped to 12th position from the 9th position in the world's automotive production ranking as they were down by 1.81 % year-on-year last year. As per the FTI, the expected sales of 2015 has been cut down to 760,000 units and aim to cover the sale of 140,000 units in the two months to spare. Meanwhile, Thailand exporters managed to remain among top 10 automotive exporters in the world with the export of 905,366 units within the first 9 months of the year which is a 7.92 % on-year rise and the total export value was accounted 431.52 billion baht.

Thai Auto Industry has witnessed an array of Motor Shows and Expos this which showcased a wide range of concepts, hybrids, sports car and pickup this year. Amidst many award ceremonies and auto events which were held in the mid-2015 and end-2015, auto machine enthusiasts have seen many innovative ideas with high-tech concepts and lured many spectators. All these events, shows, attractive deals are credited for the increase of car sales in Thailand by 7.92% on-year.

Here we have listed 5 top selling brands which dominate the domestic automotive industry:

1. Toyota: Toyota rules the Thai automotive industry with the selling of 22.973 units to stand at 33.8% in October and 34.1% for the year. It dropped by 14.3% in the market with year to date volume at 212.191 market share. It has increased its margin in sales and Toyota Hilux, which was launched in the market at the end od September this year, stays at the top in the individual leaderboard with 3339 deliveries.
2. Isuzu: Isuzu stands second with the selling of 10.727 units to stand at 15.8 % in the month of October and 18% so far in the year 2015. It was in the neck to neck competition with the ruling Toyota Hilux at 8.697 sales in October vs 9.024 sales which is 18.1% of the market share. It was dropped equally as Toyota's year-to-date with 14%.
3. Honda: Honda is in the Top 10 again with the impressive performance of Honda HR-V and Honda Jazz. It got a sales of up to 10% with 9.699 sales in October and year-to-date volume of 89.367 which is 7% rise with 14.4% of market share.
4. Mitsubishi: Mitsubishi achieved the market share of 9.3% in October and the overall share of 6.6% mainly because of its winner Mitsubishi Pajero which jumps directly to 4th position with 3.289 sales.
5. Nissan: Nissan holds the 5th position in sales with the 4.259 units sold out in the month of October and overall sales of 39.952 in 2015. It was dropped by 13.1% vs 18.1%.

So, as per the above data provided by the T.A.I.A, the Thai Automotive Industry Association, the economic sector of Thailand Auto Industry witnessed the increase in GDP of the last quarter and there was a boom in the export of the Thailand-made vehicles due to slower decline of consumer's demand.