According to F&I Tools’ record for 2021, Indonesia rose to fifteenth place on the list, overtaking 4 countries, because of a 67 percent increase in sales volume.
According to the Indonesian Association of Automobile Manufacturers (Gaikindo) and other sources, automotive sales in Indonesia in December 2021 were 96,673 units, a rise of 69.2% in comparison with the identical month in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic had a big impact .
In 2021, total sales reached 887,202 units, a rise of 66.8% in comparison with the previous yr. This result exceeds LMC Automotive’s forecast (775,000 units) in July and Gaikindo’s forecast (800,000 units) in October 2021.
Toyota sales increased 83.4% to 295,768 units (33.3% market share) in 2021, while Daihatsu sales increased 81.8% to 164,908 units (18.6% market share), Mitsubishi sales increased by 85.8% to 107,605 units (12.1% market share), Suzuki sales increased by 38.8% to 91,793 units (10.3% market share) and Honda sales increased by 24 .3% to 91,122 units (10.3% market share).
According to Gaikindo, automotive sales could reach 900,000 units in 2022, up 20% year-on-year.
Who wins the automotive wars in Southeast Asia?
Thailand continues to be the Southeast Asian country with the best automotive sales. Thailand has long been a contender for the title of car manufacturing powerhouse in Southeast Asia. On the opposite hand, the automotive sector in Indonesia is continually growing.
Ten years ago, Thailand could have easily established itself because the undisputed vehicle manufacturing powerhouse in Southeast Asia. Covid-19 has modified all the things within the near future, but Indonesia was already beginning to pose an actual challenge to Thailand’s industrial dominance even before the pandemic.
Thailand took the other route within the Nineties, following the instance of the IMF and WTO and opening its supply chains to international investment and imports. In 1995, Thailand produced over 600,000 cars, just about all of which were sold to Thai consumers.
In 2015, Thailand produced 1.9 million cars, of which 800,000 were sold domestically and 1.2 million were exported. Thai manufacturers have been capable of specialize and increase their efficiency, making automotive exports essentially the most competitive within the region because of attractive investment incentives and greater freedom in how foreign carmakers operate their supply chains.
Indonesia has adopted a course that’s somewhere between the 2. In a failed try and revitalize the domestic automotive industry within the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, it established tough protectionist barriers and required local content standards.
However, it was only within the mid-2000s, when GDP per capita began to get well in earnest after the crisis, that the Indonesian automotive sector began to develop.
In comparison, the Indonesian automotive industry has experienced explosive growth because of strong local demand, which increased from 486,000 in 2009 to 1.2 million in 2014. Because Indonesian firms were capable of scale up production so quickly to fulfill the rapidly growing domestic demand , may gain advantage from more efficient economies of scale and Indonesian exports became competitive.
Indonesia has been a net exporter of cars since 2013, with 332,000 cars exported in 2019. Unlike Thailand, production has not increased to fulfill export demand. Instead, exports were the results of a pointy increase in domestic sales.
In 2018, total production in Indonesia reached a high of 1.3 million units, ahead of Thailand by several hundred thousand units, giving Thai carmakers the upper hand for now. However, this regional fight for sector leadership raises fascinating questions on whether export-led growth, depending on foreign demand, is a greater development model than growth driven by domestic demand.
We may soon get a clearer answer to this query if Indonesia’s economy continues to grow as expected in the approaching years and if enough of its national income results in the hands of individuals to spend it on consumer goods.
Malaysia registers…
Additionally, there may be one other player in Southeast Asia. Malaysia has undertaken such an attempt in cooperation with a national automotive manufacturer. The government built trade barriers to make it too expensive to import foreign cars, then tried to supply the Proton, a domestically designed and manufactured automotive.
Proton has a big share of the captive Malaysian market, but its presence outside is small. Because the proton market is currently saturated, there may be a limit to the expansion that will be generated locally. Malaysia has indeed built its national automotive by specializing in domestic industries behind protectionist barriers, nevertheless it is just not competitive with global competition.
Source: The Diplomat, Worldpopulationreview.com, F&I Tools, Marklines Statistics
