New vehicle sales in Taiwan plunged about 37 percent sequentially last month as the long Lunar New Year holiday and 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday cut short the number of working days, along with the lingering uncertainty over import tax cuts on US vehicles, market researcher U-Car said in a report yesterday.
New car sales last month totaled 22,043, slumping from 35,073 units in January and down 19.89 percent from 37,515 in February last year, U-Car data showed.
Sales of imported luxury cars, led by Mercedes-Benz, plummeted about 45 percent to 3,109 units last month from 5,663 units in the previous month, as consumers adopted a wait-and-see attitude, the data indicated.
Photo: Lin Jing-hua, Taipei Times
Taiwan finalized its US car tax policy last month upon the signing of the Taiwan-US Agreement on Reciprocal Trade, scrapping the levy on US sedans to zero from 17.5 percent and slashing the duty on US commercial vehicles to 10 percent from 21.7 percent.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs planned to implement the new duties next month at the earliest upon receiving approval from the legislature, but that plan is now up in the air after the US Supreme Court on Feb. 20 ruled that the White House’s “reciprocal” taxes on US trading partners were unlawful.
New car sales this month are expected to rebound to 36,000 units, thanks to government tax incentives, including a deduction of up to NT$100,000 in commodity tax per car when retiring old vehicles, a major car distributor projected.
The tax incentives are expected to boost the nation’s total new car sales by 6.17 percent this year to 440,000 units, compared with 414,436 units last year, Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車) forecast in January.
Robust economic growth this year would also help stimulate car sales, Hotai said.
Hotai, which distributes Toyota, Lexus and Hino cars in Taiwan, said it aims to sell 165,000 units this year, up about 3 percent from 160,146 units last year.
Hotai sold 8,606 vehicles last month, down 17.1 percent year-on-year, with a market share of 39 percent.
Honda Taiwan Co (台灣本田) came next with sales of 1,570 units and a 7.1 market share, followed by Mercedes-Benz Taiwan Co (台灣賓士), which sold 1,343 units with a 6.1 percent share, U-Car data showed.
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