A total of 792,146 automobiles were officially sold in Thailand in 2020, a decline of 21.4 per cent, according to figures from industry compiler Toyota Motor Thailand Co Ltd.
Toyota announced in a press release that the breakdown consists of 274,789 passenger cars (down 31.0 per cent) and 517,357 commercial vehicles (down 15.1 per cent).
Noriaki Yamashita, President of Toyota Motor Thailand, said, “In 2020, the automotive industry in Thailand was greatly affected by COVID-19. Therefore, domestic market volume fell by 21.4 per cent compared to the previous year, finishing at 792,146 units.”
For the Thai automotive industry, 2021 will be another challenging year, he added.
“Many factors, such as the COVID-19 epidemic situation, including vaccine development and accessibility, and the global economic trend, including economic stimulus measures by governments, will affect the outlook,” he said. “Furthermore, the activities in auto industry, such as new product introduction, marketing events and sales campaigns, will also play a significant role to stimulate auto sales.”
Yamashita said Toyota market forecast for 2021 will be in the range between 850,000 to 900,000 units, an increase of 7- to 14-per cent increase from last year.
Toyota’s sales in Thailand have been heavily affected by the pandemic during the past year. The company sold a total of 244,316 vehicles, down by 26.5 per cent compared to 2019.
Toyota is still the largest automaker in the market with a share of 30.8 per cent in 2020. However in the passenger car and commercial vehicle segments, the all-time leader has been beaten by arch rivals Honda (77,419 vs 68,152 units) and Isuzu (181,194 vs 176,614 units) respectively.
Yamashita added, “As for Toyota, our sales target in 2021 is between 280,000 to 300,000 units, or 15 to 20% increase, with 33.3% market share.”
Toyota exported 215,277 vehicles in 2020 and plans to grow the figure by 18 per cent to 254,000 units this year. This will also bring up the total Toyota production in Thailand to 527,000 units in 2021, an increase of 19 per cent over 2020.
