Neutral Honda foresees slim growth in robust field

Japanese carmaker Honda Automobile Thailand has a neutral business outlook for 2018, forecasting 127,000 units to be sold, though it expects the total domestic market to sell 900,000 cars for growth of 3.4%.

Chief operating officer Pitak Pruittisarikorn said Honda aims to maintain its local sales this year but is confident that overall economic sentiment will beef up growth in Thailand’s car market throughout the year.

“I believe the robust car market in 2017 can pass healthy momentum on to this year,” he said. “Last year, Thailand’s overall automobile market continued to recover, growing 13% to 870,000 units sold, the highest growth in five years.”

Honda reported 127,768 units sold in 2017, up 19% from a year earlier, on overwhelming customer acceptance of the five new models launched last year: City, Civic hatchback, CR-V, Jazz and Mobilio.

Honda remained third in the Thai market with a 14.7% share, up 0.7 percentage points.

Mr Pitak said Honda ranked first in the passenger car market for the third year in a row because of the highest cumulative sales in three major passenger car segments.

In the subcompact segment, it captured a 49.4% market share with cumulative sales of 58,315 units, led by Honda City (34,955 units) and Honda Jazz (23,360 units).

For the compact car segment, it had a 50.9% market share with total sales of 27,448 units.

Honda Civic was the most popular, with 24,432 units sold. The Honda Civic Hatchback sold 3,016 units.

Honda was also strong in the sport utility vehicle segment, capturing an overwhelming 61.2% market share with sales of 32,690 units.

The mid-size Honda HR-V had the most sales with 15,371 units, followed by the Honda CR-V’s 11,232 units and Honda BR-V’s 6,087 units.

“Honda will continue to strive to expand the potential of our customers’ lives through our products and advanced driving technologies to meet the daily needs of our customers’ various lifestyles,” Mr Pitak said.