Strong sales of new car models helped Luxgen Motor Co Ltd (納智捷) replace Ford Motor Co as the nation’s No. 4 car brand last month.
Luxgen, which is operated by Taiwan-based manufacturer Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車), sold 3,101 cars last month to give it a record 7 percent share of the local market, according to statistics compiled by Chunghwa Telecom Co’s (中華電信) data communication branch.
In the first month of the year, the car company distributed 2,237 Luxgen U6 Turbo sport utility vehicles that it launched on Nov. 11 last year and started distributing last month, Luxgen said in a statement.
Orders for the carmaker’s U6 model numbered more than 3,000 as of yesterday, it added.
Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), which distributes Toyota and Lexus models in Taiwan, continued to lead the market after selling 13,399 cars last month to command 30.2 percent of the market, data showed.
The sales figure represented a 2 percent monthly rise and a 6.8 percent annual drop, Hotai said.
The company managed to distribute 4,660 units of the new model of Toyota’s Altis sedan in the first month of the year, higher than the 4,000-unit target that it had set previously, Hotai spokesman Fred Hsieh (謝富來) said by telephone yesterday.
“However, the firm’s total car sales this month may drop to about 20,000 units, as most clients prefer to purchase cars before the Lunar New Year holiday,” Hsieh said.
“Fewer work days this month as a result of the holiday is also likely to cause sales numbers to decline from the previous month,” he added.
Coming in after Hotai was Nissan and Infiniti distributor Yulon Nissan Motor Co (裕隆日產), which sold 5,921 cars for a 13.4 percent stake in the market.
The 5,921 figure was up by 35.9 percent from the previous month and by 18.2 percent from a year ago, boosted by sales of Nissan’s Super Sentra sedan, which debuted in October last year.
Yulon Nissan sold 2,289 units of the Super Sentra last month, up 78.4 percent from a month earlier, Chunghwa’s figures showed.
China Motor Corp (中華汽車), the local manufacturer of Mitsubishi cars, came in third after distributing 4,719 cars last month, according to its sales figures. The company had a 10.7 percent share of the market last month.
China Motor’s sales last month were up 39.7 percent from December last year and down 11.7 percent annually.
Total car sales in Taiwan last month jumped 13.6 percent to 44,301 units from a month ago, representing a 4 percent annual rise, Chunghwa’s statistics showed.
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