Market Overview:
After the sales volume drop by 14.1% YOY in Q1 caused by chip shortage and some other issues, the whole market is 35,224 units in April. It drops by 10.6% compared with last month, and drops by 7.0% YOY. Due to continuous unstable supply, it doesn’t make too much sense for comparing sales number month by month, to completely reflect the actual demand of the market. But as for the fact that the sales volume YTD drops by 12.5% YOY, it still indicates that the market will begin to fall from the 450,000 units peak of the last two years in the long run. A tendency worthy of notice is that Taiwan car market went the opposite direction to the global car market trend after the COVID-19 pandemic prevailing from the end of 2019, as it crosses the 450,000 units threshold for two consecutive years until now. We may wait until the global chip supply chain gets back to normal status after Q3 to see whether Taiwan market demand still keeps declining.
Market share of brands:
The abnormal fluctuation of market share of some brands month by month is subjected to the continuous supply issue. Toyota keeps its leading position by a wide margin as usual, and CMC-Mitsubishi follows up with 10% share. The “3rd leading group” including Honda, Nissan, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz keep their market share at 6%~7% YTD respectively. Honda has an abnormally low registration volume this month, and BMW has abnormally high volume, both due to the supply issues. In view of the sales performance YTD, aside from Tesla growing by 73.4% and Hyundai growing slightly, most of the other major brands declined in various scales. Suzuki, Luxgen, and Škoda declined the most among major brands in descending order.
Comparison between domestic cars and imported cars (excluding heavy duty trucks):
The sales ratio of domestic cars and imported cars is 55.4% vs. 44.6% this month, and YTD ratio is 56.4% vs. 43.6%. In comparison with last year, the imported cars are influenced by supply issues more than domestic cars this year. Imported cars ever reached the summit of market share in 2020, but it started to decline year over year. I assume that this is just a temporary situation. As BEV brands and cars become more popular and their prices are more affordable in the coming years, the ratio of domestic cars and imported cars is highly possible to invert.
Outstanding models:
Unsurprisingly, Toyota models almost take the throne of sales in every segment, including Altis (1,728 units), Yaris (1,057 units), and the Small SUV Corolla Cross (3,446 units). The champion of midsize SUV segment is Ford Kuga (1,260 units). The best-selling model of the imported cars is still Toyota RAV4 (1,432 units). The light commercial truck segment is worthy of watch that the newcomer Toyota Town Ace has a stiff competition with the long-standing CMC Veryca in the past two months, the hot-selling season for commercial vehicles sales. They have delivered 1,084/916 units and 1,032/987 units in March and April respectively.
BEVs market:
In this emerging segment that is dominated by Tesla, only 217 cars have been registered from all brands in total due to none was registered by Tesla. iX, Ioniq 5, and Taycan performed relatively well among these BEVs. Tesla Model 3, on the other hand, has 2,299 registrations in Q1 this year, which is 73.4% more than the brand whole line-up registered in the first 4 months last year, and it is ranked 14th in the market share list of all brands. Obviously their market share is decided by car supply. In consideration of BEVs sales, in addition to the features, quality, price, residual value, and aftersales service, there are also the availability to install chargers at home, the driving range, and the convenience of charging during outing. This car segment is full of possibilities, and obviously more challenges in sales.