Thai Yamaha Motor Co, the local unit of the Japanese motorcycle maker, plans to beef up sales this year to 285,000 units, a 5.6% rise, amid cloudy sentiment in the local motorcycle market.
With this target, Yamaha aims to capture a 16.2% market share in 2019, up 1.1 percentage points from the previous year.
Newly appointed chief operating officer Phongstorn Ermongkonchai said Yamaha is trying to be more competitive because the overall market is expected to decline by 1.6% to 1.76 million motorcycles in 2019.
"The slight contraction is because of low purchasing power of farmers, as crop prices have remained stagnant even as the economy is projected to see growth of 3.5-4.5% this year," Mr Phongstorn said.
Other sectors such as industry, exports, investment and tourism are expected to perform well, but household debt remains high, pressuring purchases of new motorcycles, he said.
"Yamaha is optimistic that motorcycles remain necessary assets for Thai motorists, and they will buy them as replacement bikes or to ride in upcountry provinces where public transport does not have developed networks," Mr Phongstorn said.
He said Yamaha wants to increase sales in 2019 in all three segments: mopeds, automatic and sport.
Automatic motorcycles account for the majority of sales at 173,000 units, with a 27.5% market share, followed by mopeds at 59,000 units (7% market share) and sport motorbikes at 53,000 units (24% market share).
Of the sport motorbikes, 2,900 units are in the big-bike segment above 400cc, with this market projected at 31,000 big bikes in 2019, up 1.6%.
Yamaha plans to introduce five new and refreshed motorcycles in 2019, two of which were launched yesterday: the FreeGo 125 and the Exciter 150.
In related news, Yamaha reported sales volume of 269,986 motorcycles in 2018, a 0.5% rise from the year before. The showing was well below Yamaha's earlier expectation of 300,000 units.
Yamaha's market share rose by 0.3 percentage points to 15.1% in 2018, putting the brand in second place after Japanese rival Honda.
In 2018, overall motorcycle sales totalled 1,789,000 units, down 1.2%.
Yamaha saw all-time high sales in 2012 of 490,000 motorcycles as the overall market boasted a record 2.13 million units sold.
Mr Phongstorn succeeded Jintana Udomsub, who retired from the position.