New vehicle sales in Taiwan shrank 14.4 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year, not boding well for the market to return to positive growth this year amid the uncertainty of US tariffs, government data showed yesterday.
Cumulative sales in the first six months were 198,867 units, after sales last month registered a 17.5 percent decline to 34,320 units, the data showed.
Last month’s figure rose 7.6 percent from 31,910 units in May.
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Sales in the first half came in at less than half of last year’s sales of 449,000 units, indicating that the prospects “are not optimistic,” market researcher U-car.com said in a report.
“Sales in recent months showed the annual declines continued to worsen,” it said.
Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), the nation’s top car distributor, in May forecast that new car sales in Taiwan would reach 450,000 units this year. The firm distributes Toyota and Lexus cars.
“Taiwan’s car market is overshadowed by strong wait-and-see sentiment ahead of the results of Taiwan-US trade talks over the tariffs issue,” U-car said. “Consumers are still hoping for cuts in tariffs on imported cars or commodity taxes, leading to a delay in new orders or car deliveries.”
Market sentiment might be clearer following the end of US President Donald Trump’s 90-day reprieve of the “reciprocal” tariffs on Wednesday next week, the researcher said.
With the absence of the tariff uncertainty, sales this month are expected to rebound significantly to 450,000 units, thanks to summer sales promotions, some automakers estimated.
Hotai sold 11,458 cars last month, down 7 percent from June last year, with a market share of 33.4 percent, the data showed.
China Motor Corp (中華汽車) came next with sales of 2,136 units and a 6.2 percent market share, while Mercedes-Benz AG ranked third with sales of 1,840 units.
Tesla Inc saw its ranking jump to No. 5 after selling 1,693 cars last month. The US electric vehicle maker was not among the top 10 best sellers in May.
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