Southeast Asian sales and production of automobiles, motorcycles and scooters dropped as much as 10 percent in 2014, and Indonesia overtook Thailand as the largest market for new sales of all of those types of vehicles, according to the ASEAN Automotive Federation.
Manila-based AAF covers seven of the 10 nations in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
In 2014, sales of passenger cars and commercial vehicles in those countries fell 10 percent to 3.2 million, while sales of motorcycles and scooters fell 2 percent to 10.9 million. Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines recorded double-digit increases for passenger cars and commercial vehicles – 39 percent, 35 percent and 29 percent, respectively.
Indonesia overtook Thailand and posted the largest number of four-wheeler sales, 1.2 million units, despite a decrease of 2 percent compared to the previous year. Sales of four-wheelers for Thailand, the second-largest market in the region, fell 34 percent to 882,000, while sales in Malaysia rose by 2 percent to 666,000 in the same segment.
According to Ipsos Business Consulting, a market intelligence and global research firm, the decline in passenger car sales in Thailand will hurt the countrys lubricant marketin the short termbecause around 50 percent of lube demand there comes from the automotive sector.
Because new car owners service their cars with the manufacturers own brands of oil, the drop in the car sales in 2014 will have a negative impact in the[genuine]lubricant segment, which serves the population of 3.5 million cars under the warranty period, or 25 percent of the total car population in Thailand in 2014, Nut Khunnawesh, an Ipsos analyst, told Lube Report Asia.
[But we] donotexpect there to be a significant impact on the brandedlubricant segment from the drop in car sales in 2014, he added. These players mostly service vehicles that are out of the manufacturer’s warranty period.
Regional sales of motorcycles and scooters fell by 2 percent to 10.9 million in 2014. Sales in Indonesia, which is the largest consumer market for motorcycles and scooters and accounts for 72 percent of sales in the AAF region, rose 2 percent in 2014 to 7.9 million, while Thailand, the blocks second-biggest market, saw two-wheeler sales fall 15 percent to 1.7 million. Sales in Singapore recorded the largest proportional drop – 30 percent to 8,145.
The seven-nation blocks production of passenger cars and commercial vehicles fell 10 percent in 2014 to 4 million, while production of motorcycles and scooters fell 3 percent to 11 million. In the four-wheeler segment, Thailand, the regions largest producer of automobiles, experienced a 23 percent drop to 1.9 million. Output jumped 29 percent in Vietnam to 121,084, rose 12 percent iin the Philippines to 88,845 and jumped 7 percent in Indonesia to 1.3 million.
Total production of two-wheelers also fell, declining 3 percent to 11 million.Malaysia and Thailand dropped by 20 percent and 17 percent, respectively. Output in Indonesia, the largest two-wheeler producer in the block, increased 2 percent to 7.9 million, and production in the Philippines rose 4 percent to 755,184.
Ipsos Business Consulting told Lube Report Asia that it expects the Southeast Asia lubricant market to grow at an average annual rate of 4.85 percent from 2013 to 2019 – [nearly] double the global forecast of 2.6 percent. With such strong growth, the total market will reach 3.3 billion liters in 2019.