The nation’s total car sales this year is expected to reach 400,000 units despite a recent decline, Yulon Nissan Motor Co (裕隆日產), which distributes Nissan and Infiniti cars, said yesterday.
Last month, car sales grew 6.6 percent from a year ago to 34,327 units, according to the latest data compiled by the data communication branch of Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信). That represented a 1.2 percent monthly reduction.
Car sales might fall further to 31,000 units this month and rebound a bit to 32,000 next month, Yulon Nissan company vice president Leman Lee (李振成) said by telephone yesterday.
Lee said the decline was due to customers’ attention is shifting to the election later this month and because of recent slow performance of the stock market.
From January through last month, total car sales were 348,083 units, up 14.2 percent from a year ago, the data showed.
Last month, Yulon Nissan was the third-largest local car distributor with a market share of 9.5 percent.
DECLINE
The company sold 3,255 cars, down 8.3 percent from a year earlier and 11.3 percent from a month ago, it said.
Lee said the declining sales were because the company holds a sales competition this month, causing many retailers to transfer their cars to customers this month instead of during last month.
Lee estimated that sales of Yulon Nissan would rise by 10 percent this month.
Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), which sells Toyota and Lexus cars in Taiwan, continued to lead the market last month by distributing a total of 11,531 cars.
Hotai acquired a market share of 33.6 percent last month, data showed.
TWO-BOX SEGMENT
The company’s sales were boosted by its two-box Yaris, which was launched on Sept. 10. Hotai sold 1,988 of the vehicles last month, accounting for 32.4 percent of the two-box segment.
The figure was up 15 percent from the previous month and more than double from a year ago, it said.
Honda Taiwan Co (台灣本田) moved two places up to fourth last month from sixth place a month earlier, after the launch of its two-box FIT on Oct. 1.
Honda Taiwan distributed 2,451 cars last month, acquiring a market share of 7.1 percent.
Last month, Honda sold 838 FIT cars, up 1.7 times from a month ago, company data showed.
Sales of two-box cars were 6,134 units last month, up 13.5 percent from the previous year and up 14.9 percent from a month ago because of new-car launches.
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