Car dealers pocket big profits from selling small cars

Manufacturers and car dealers are pocketing big profits from selling small cars such as Kia Morning, Hyundai Grand i10 and Toyota Vios 

According to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA), 276,817 cars of different kinds were sold in 2018, an increase of 10 percent compared with 2017.

Of 10 bestsellers in 2018, Toyota’s Vios was in the top position with 27,118 sold. With sales of Vios alone, the number of Toyota cars sold amounted to 1/10 of total sales.

With 65,856 cars, Toyota became the manufacturer with highest number of cars sold in 2018. 

Small-size product line also helped Hyundai Than Cong gain an impressive growth rate, though it joined the market later than other brands. In 2018, Hyundai Thanh Cong’s Hyundai Grand i10 ranked second among 10 bestsellers in Vietnam with 22,068 cars sold.

The good sales of the model allowed Hyundai to jump to the second position in terms of car sales with 63,256 products sold in 2018.

Kia Morning from South Korea was also among the 10 best-selling models in Vietnam in 2018 with 11,458 cars sold.

As for Toyota, encouraged by the success of domestically assembled model Vios, the manufacturer in September 2018 launched another small-size model – Wigo, imported from Indonesia.

With the reasonable prices of VND345-405 million, Toyota could sell 800 Wigos a month in the last three consecutive months of 2018.

Having realized high demand for small cars, Honda plans to bring Brio, with the selling price of below VND400 million, to the Vietnamese market.

Honda’s sales agents have begun taking orders for Brio and the first consignments are expected to arrive in Vietnam by the end of Q1.

VinFast has also announced the launch of Fadil, a model with cylinder capacity of 1.4L.

The high demand has made the small-size car market segment scorching hot. Besides Honda and Toyota, the other two brands from Japan, namely Suzuki and Mitsubishi, also have made investments in the segment. 

A representative of Suzuki revealed that in 2019 the manufacturer would have a special price strategy on a series of models, including the small Celerio.

In order to be more competitive, enterprises need to increase the localization ratio to be able to enjoy preferences, which cuts production costs, and ask for holding companies’ support. 

Le Ngoc Duc, CEO of Hyundai Thanh Cong, said the company had asked partners and foreign car part suppliers to help reduce the production costs.

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