0 Astra Daihatsu Drives Past Its 2012 Vehicle Sales Target

Astra Daihatsu Motor surpassed its full-year sales target for 2012 on the back of strong consumer spending in Indonesia. “In 2012, Daihatsu’s wholesale sales reached 162,742 units and surpassed its sales target of 150,000 units,” Amelia Tjandra, marketing director at Astra Daihatsu, said in a statement released on Monday. Astra Daihatsu is the seller of Daihatsu vehicles in Indonesia and is a unit of Astra International, the nation’s largest automotive distributor. 

“This achievement is an encouragement for us to maintain quality and improve our services in 2013,” Amelia added. Sales last year grew 17 percent from 2011, when the company sold 139,544 vehicles. The All New Xenia multipurpose vehicle was the biggest contributor to Daihatsu’s sales, the statement said, with 45 percent of its 2012 total. Its Gran Max commercial van came in as the second-biggest contributor, grabbing a 32 percent share of sales. 

Daihatsu’s two medium-sized SUV models contributed a combined 19 percent of sales. Its small city car, while showing the most rapid sales growth, provided the smallest contribution: about 3 percent. Sales of the city car, the Sirion, jumped 92 percent in 2012 from a year earlier. By November, according to data from Astra International, sales from Daihatsu accounted for about 27 percent of its total car sales. It is the second-largest car brand for Astra, after Toyota. 

Data from the Indonesia Automotive Industry Association (Gaikindo) show that from January to November last year, Daihatsu accounted for 15 percent of total car sales nationally. Car sales have remained strong in Indonesia despite a minimum down payment requirement for auto financing that Bank Indonesia implemented beginning in June 2012. The central bank set a 30 percent minimum down payment for vehicles used for personal use and 25 percent for commercial vehicles. 

Concerned about weakened demand due to the regulation, Gaikindo lowered its 2012 sales target to 850,000 vehicles nationally, from an initial target of one million units for the full year. However, by November, domestic car sales had surpassed the one million units threshold. The consumer confidence index calculated by Bank Indonesia rose almost every month in the second semester last year, but showed some weakening in December. Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank Research said employment in urban areas continued to improve and Indonesian consumers were no longer concentrating their spending on food, with an increasing proportion of income going to discretionary spending.

source : the jakarta globe