Two years after ending its partnership with a dealer here, Honda Motor Co, the second-largest automaker in Japan, is planning to triple its market share in Taiwan by rolling out new models and expanding its distribution network.
The Tokyo-based automaker began its quest earlier this year through the launch of its CR-V sport-utility vehicles in January. Yesterday it launched its revamped Accord sedan.
"Expanding the franchised dealership network is the most important task for us. We still have ample room to improve," Fujisaki Teruo, president of Honda Taiwan Co (
PHOTO: CHU PEI-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The Japanese automaker has 20 dealers here, up from five dealers when it rolled out the CR-Vs. Honda is in talks with another 10 dealers, with which it hopes to have signed deals by June next year, Fujisaki said.
The automaker used to be one of Taiwan's top five car sellers. It ended a four-decade partnership with Nan Yang Industries Co (南陽實業) early last year. Without Nan Yang's extensive dealer network, Honda's sales here fell dramatically.
With the gradual expansion of its dealership network, Honda hopes to increase sales to 13,500 cars this year, or 3.3 percent of the total, and boost its share to about 10 percent over the next few years, said Chen Chun-liang (陳俊亮), manager of the company's sales and marketing division. Chen declined to specify the timetable.
Honda has sold 8,500 CR-Vs in Taiwan this year. It is eying to sell 10,000 of the revamped Accord sedans within a year, said Wey Gow-jhy (
The two-liter Accord is priced at between NT$769,000 and NT$859,000. The three-liter model sells for NT$1.07 million. Despite fierce competition, the company said it had no plans to offer special discounts on the Accord.
"We're sticking to our pricing policy ... but we believe we can achieve our sales target easily," Wey said.
Honda makes both the CR-V and Accord models in its Pingtung factory, which has a capacity of 35,000 cars a year. To catch up with demand, the factory will operate around the clock starting at the end of this month, the company said.
Honda expects its factory to be running near full capacity next year after it set a target of selling 30,000 cars.
"Taiwan's car market will enjoy moderate growth next year, with sales rising to around 420,000 vehicles for the full year," Chen said.
Wei refused to comment about the possibility of introducing the popular compact car Fit to its product lineup here.
"It's too early to discuss this now. No conclusions about the introduction of Fit, or a timetable, have been made," he said.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
RSS