Honda Leads Thai Passenger Car Market for First Half of 2016

Honda is the best-selling brand in Thailand’s passenger car market in the first six months of 2016, selling a total of 53,952 vehicles.

It has been a challenging year for the Thai automotive market, with overall industry volume shrank slightly from 369,109 units in the first half of 2015 to 366,373 units in the corresponding period of this year.

Passenger car sales, which includes monocoque-type SUVs such as the Honda CR-V, but excludes body-on-frame types such as the Toyota Fortuner and Ford Everest, contracted more significantly, diving 12% year-on-year from 173,757 in 1H 2015 to 152,619 this year.

In spite of the sluggish market conditions, Honda’s sales decline is well-contained. The brand managed 54,793 units in the first half of 2015. Against the sharper decline of the industry in general, Honda was therefore able to expand its share of the Thai passenger market from 31.5 to 35.4%.

New launches in 2016 have been successful in sustaining customer interest in the brand. Besides refreshing the Accord with a facelift, Honda also added the BR-V to its line-up and also introduced the all-new Civic, which accumulated 15,000 bookings within four months of its launch. To date, Honda has already delivered 10,000 Civics to Thai customers.

Mr. Pitak Pruittisarikorn, Chief Operating Officer of Honda Automobile (Thailand) Co., Ltd., said, “Amid the slow economy and automobile market at large, Honda has introduced many new models to deliver maximum satisfaction to our customers. Our three new models have uplifted the Thai automobile market during the first six months of 2016. For the second half of the year, Honda will introduce the new Accord Hybrid model at the end of July. It will feature the latest advanced hybrid technology from Honda.”

Honda’s leadership of the Thai passenger car market is no one-hit wonder. Recent data from the Malaysian Automotive Association also confirms that Honda is the second best-selling brand in our country with 39,654 vehicles sold from January to June 2016, outselling third-placed Proton by 3,927 units but far behind market Perodua’s 97,370 units.