Registration Report Analysis - 2022 August Taiwan Car Market

By Jeff Lee / Mike Song 2022-09-02

Market Overview: The car market in August has drop by 10% compared with July due to the first 26 days being in the period of Ghost month. The total registration number this month is 34,416 units, which is 3.8% higher YOY that doen’t look bad, and it’s even better than that of June or May. The accumulated registration number in the first 8 months this year is 275,765 units, which drops by 5.9% YOY but is getting closer to last year’s number again ( compared with last month ). This most unexpected brand is the leader – Hotai Motor that drops by more than 3,400 units compared with last month due to supply chain issues, which the biggest factor that influenced the total market share of domestic cars! In addition, quite a few imported brands including Tesla has increased sales volume this month, which indicates the arrival of enormous new cars that compensated the poor performance in the past few months again. As for the prediction of the annual market, I believed that everyone knows domestic carmakers adjusted the volume forecast one by one recently, and the target of 460,000 units or 450,000 units emphasized for more than 6 months has been abandoned; it has been adjusted to my estimated level of 430,000 units or 425,000 units back to a few months ago. Currently, even though many brands had lots of on-hand orders waiting for delivery, while considering the approaching year-end election day and the situation that US dollars’ significant appreciation is forcing the car price to increase, my prediction still remains at 425,000~430,000 units, or it might ends up with a number closing to 430,000 units.

Market share of brands:

The market share performance of each brand this month is still led by Toyota/Lexus (30.4%) and CMC Mitsubishi (9.4%) as the first and second place, but these two brands has just combined market share of 40.3%, which is way lower than the averaged 45.0% of the first 8 months. In addition, the ranking orders this month has changed significantly, and there are 5 brands delivering 5%~6% market share… Honda, Ford, Nissan, Volkswagen, and Tesla in order. Although BMW and Mercedes-Benz fall behind these brands, but the volume are still more than that of July. Tesla came to the “bi-monthly” delivery month, which had delivered 1,774 units this month, and the market share is up to 5.2% again. Besides, Volkswagen had delivered 1,804 units, and the 1,673 units out of them are passenger cars, which is the monthly record high of that brand. To view from the accumulated market share in the first 8 months, Toyota/Lexus, CMC Mitsubishi, and Honda sit tight at the top three, and the competition for 4th place between Ford and Nissan is unexpectedly stiff by little margin of just 60 units now. The other brand worthy to keep an eye on is that the accumulated market share of Hyundai had surpassed Mazda and Volkswagen to move to 8th place. By viewing from YOY performance, the ranking of the sales growth of major brands is Tesla, Subaru, Hyundai, Honda, Volvo, and Kia in order, and the other major brands are decreasing… Suzuki, Skoda, and Mercedes-Benz are the top three.

Comparison between domestic cars and imported cars (excluding heavy duty trucks):

The sales ratio of domestic cars and imported cars is 51.8% vs. 48.2% this month, and YTD ratio is 55.6% vs. 44.4%. Domestic cars have better sales ratio YOY, but in the situation that the supply chain of them began facing problems, the final sales ratio that is just four months to go before the end of this year depends on the supply of both domestic cars and imported cars.

Outstanding models:

There are just 4 models that had more than 1,000 units of sales this month… Corolla Cross (3,216 units), Model 3 (1,774 units), Altis (1,321 units), and Kicks (1,005 units). In the competition of light duty trucks, CMC Veryca performed better than Toyota Town Ace in 2 consecutive months for the first time (829 units vs. 774 units), but the margin of every month are less than 100 units, which is a stiff competition!

BEVs market:

The delivery of BEVs is totaling 1,930 units this month, and Tesla Model 3 occupies 92% market share. In addition, iX has been delivered for 69 units, Ioniq 5 has been delivered for 33 units. The BEV segment size of Taiwan car market totally depends on Model 3 sales; in the situation that most of the brands had unstable car supply, the annual share of BEVs out of the total market will be difficult to surpass 3% (or 13,000 units).