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Market scorching hot, auto manufacturers have bumper crop
Automobile factories are now running at full capacity, but their output still cannot meet the demand, which has been increasing sharply.
Cars running out
“Cars have never run out so early in the year before,” said Co Duy Tu, Head of sales division of Toyota Lang Ha automobile sales agent.
The year 2009 is four months from over, but Toyota Lang Ha has stopped taking orders for all models of cars from clients.
In August 2009, Toyota Vietnam has run at full capacity, churning out 115 cars per day. Meanwhile, it churned out 80 cars per day only in April 2009.
When Toyota Vietnam launched Altis 2.0 onto the market in June 2009, it planned on selling only 150 cars a month. However, it has been selling 800 cars of the model a month.
According to Phan Hong Hai, a marketing executive of Toyota Motor Vietnam, the automobile manufacturer has received orders for 8,000 cars of different models, from Vios, Corolla Altis, Camry to seven-seaters like Innova.
Other automobile manufacturers, Honda Vietnam, Ford Vietnam and GM Daewoo, have also reported the same situation.
Nguyen Ba Huan, a salesman at Honda My Dinh sales agent, has confirmed that he has stopped signing new sales contracts for five-seater CRVs.
Vinh Honda sales agent has stopped signing contracts for Civic 2.0 with delivery in 2009.
Ford’s Focus, which once sold slowly, is also being hunted by customers now. As the rivals of the same market segment like Honda’s Civic and Toyota’s Altis are running out, clients have shifted to use Focus, which has a more competitive price.
Vu Dinh Bach, salesman of Ford Thang Long, said that Ford Thang Long has stopped signing contracts for Focus 2.0 automatic with delivery in 2009.
According to Bach, a lot of customers have shifted their attention to five-seater models like Escape, or seven-seaters like Everest; they have to wait just three months for delivery.
“I think that automobile manufacturers will have no more cars to sell in the last four months of the year,” Bach said.
The models of popular market segment, the four-and five-seat models with the cylinder capacities of less than 2.0L like Spark 0.8, Spark 1.0, Gentra 1.5, Lacetti 1.6 of GM Daewoo Vietnam are also selling like hot cakes.
GM Daewoo Vietnam’s Nguyen Quang Minh from Sales and Marketing Division said that the manufacturer expects to see sales in August even higher than in July with 1,400 cars to be delivered to clients. Meanwhile, the figure was 1,300 in July.
No car manufacturers anticipated earlier this year when they set business plans that car sales would be so high as they believed that the economic downturn would force people to tighten their belts.
Minh said that GM Daewoo previously planned to sell 7,500 cars in 2009, but now it is certain it will be able to sell 12,000.
The automobile market not only has warmed up as recently predicted, but has become scorching hot. Analysts have attributed the hot sales to the Government initiated demand stimulus package and the tax incentives (50 percent VAT reduction and 50 percent ownership registration tax).
Tu of Toyota Lang Ha said that Vietnamese consumers always purchase cars at the end of the year, so that they can drive new cars on Tet. That explains why ‘car fever attacks’ always occur in October and November.
However, the situation is quite different this year. Since tax incentives are valid until December 31, 2009 only, most people are rushing to purchase cars right now in order to avoid the higher taxes to be initiated next year.
Tu said that though clients have heard about the running out of cars, he still receives 20 calls per day from people asking if they can get cars in 2009.
Pham Huyen
vietnamnet
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