Domestic new car sales dropped 52.5 percent last month to 20,216 vehicles compared with 42,599 vehicles a month earlier, as the market entered the traditional low season following the Lunar New Year holiday, the latest industry data showed yesterday.
On an annual basis, last month’s figure was 8.2 percent lower than the 22,021 vehicles sold in the same month last year, according to statistics compiled by the data communication branch of Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信).
To avoid the Lunar New Year distortion, as the week-long festival takes place at a different time each year, total car sales were 62,815 vehicles in the first two months of the year, which was about the same as the number a year ago, the data showed.
The market share taken up by Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), which distributes Toyota and Lexus models, grew to 41.5 percent last month from 33.8 percent a month earlier, the data showed.
Hotai continued to lead the market as the company sold 8,391 cars, up 127.3 percent compared with a year ago and down 41.7 percent from a month earlier, according to the data.
“The rise of our market share and the year-on-year sales growth were because we extended a promotion until the end of the Lunar New Year holiday,” Hotai deputy spokesman Yu Shiao-chung (喻曉忠) said by telephone.
Furthermore, unlike Hotai, some other car companies tried to deliver their cars as early as January, reducing their sales numbers for last month, Yu said.
Looking ahead, Hotai expects total car sales in Taiwan this year to be 370,000 vehicles, slightly better than 365,871 last year.
Nissan and Infiniti car distributor Yulon Nissan Motor Co (裕隆日產) sold 2,156 vehicles last month, accounting for a market share of 10.7 percent.
Yulon Nissan replaced China Motor Corp (CMC, 中華汽車) in the No. 2 spot last month.
CMC, the manufacturer of Mitsubishi cars and the nation’s third-largest car company last month, sold 2,050 cars with a market share of 10.1 percent last month.
Meanwhile, Hotai said it had no plans to lower its car prices in response to the falling yen, but it would offer its clients loans with zero interest and a video driving recorder for free if they purchase Hotai’s cars by the end of this month.
Yulon Nissan also said it did not plan to cut prices.
On Thursday, Mazda Taiwan (台灣馬自達) announced it would cut car prices by more than 3 percent on average, beginning yesterday, making it the first Japanese car vendor to lower prices on the back of a weakening yen.
Three experts in the high technology industry have said that US President Donald Trump’s pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors is part of an effort to force Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to the negotiating table. In a speech to Republicans on Jan. 27, Trump said he intends to impose tariffs on Taiwan to bring chip production to the US. “The incentive is going to be they’re not going to want to pay a 25, 50 or even a 100 percent tax,” he said. Darson Chiu (邱達生), an economics professor at Taichung-based Tunghai University and director-general of
‘LEGACY CHIPS’: Chinese companies have dramatically increased mature chip production capacity, but the West’s drive for secure supply chains offers a lifeline for Taiwan When Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技) entered a deal with the eastern Chinese city of Hefei in 2015 to set up a new chip foundry, it hoped the move would help provide better access to the promising Chinese market. However, nine years later, that Chinese foundry, Nexchip Semiconductor Corp (合晶集成), has become one of its biggest rivals in the legacy chip space, leveraging steep discounts after Beijing’s localization call forced Powerchip to give up the once-lucrative business making integrated circuits for Chinese flat panels. Nexchip is among Chinese foundries quickly winning market share in the crucial US$56.3 billion industry of so-called legacy
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) is reportedly making another pass at Nissan Motor Co, as the Japanese automaker's tie-up with Honda Motor Co falls apart. Nissan shares rose as much as 6 percent after Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported that Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) instructed former Nissan executive Jun Seki to connect with French carmaker Renault SA, which holds about 36 percent of Nissan’s stock. Hon Hai, the Taiwanese iPhone-maker also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), was exploring an investment or buyout of Nissan last year, but backed off in December after the Japanese carmaker penned a deal
WASHINGTON POLICY: Tariffs of 10 percent or more and other new costs are tipped to hit shipments of small parcels, cutting export growth by 1.3 percentage points The decision by US President Donald Trump to ban Chinese companies from using a US tariff loophole would hit tens of billions of dollars of trade and reduce China’s economic growth this year, according to new estimates by economists at Nomura Holdings Inc. According to Nomura’s estimates, last year companies such as Shein (希音) and PDD Holdings Inc’s (拼多多控股) Temu shipped US$46 billion of small parcels to the US to take advantage of the rule that allows items with a declared value under US$800 to enter the US tariff-free. Tariffs of 10 percent or more and other new costs would slash such
RSS