Auto market gears up for tough Q4

Auto market gears up for tough Q4

Competition in the automobile market will likely intensify towards year-end as people rush to beat the Dec 31 deadline of the first-time car buyer scheme.

Earlier Mitsubishi announced it will step up production of its Mirage eco-cars by 50% to 6,000 a month in the fourth quarter on strongly escalating demand.

Honda, Thailand's second-largest passenger car company, will also step into the fray this quarter after confirming it will introduce a small sedan with an engine size of 1,200cc and which qualifies for the first-time car-buyer scheme.

Sureethip La-ongthong, the marketing director at Mazda Sales (Thailand) said Mazda has made preparations and informed its dealerships to advise customers carefully and ensure the accuracy of qualified-name lists in order to avoid any problems afterwards.

Customers ordering now will receive their vehicles in January.

"We urge customers to place orders sooner than usual and prepare the documents for submission before the year-end period, when the traffic will become very tight. If customers don' submit the documents in time, then there will be no excise tax rebate," said Ms Sureethip.

The company reviewing how it manages its orders so as to ensure customers do not miss their rebate.

In the first nine months of this year, Mazda's sold 52,170 vehicles, up by 63.8% year-on-year.

The biggest seller was the Mazda2 subcompact at 28,474 cars, up by 43% year-on-year, followed by the BT-50 Pro pickup truck at 19,308 units, up by 156%.

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