Car sales in Indonesia pick up, but a far cry from 2019

Indonesia’s automotive industry reported improved sales numbers for June, but the 12,623 units sold during the month was still 78.8% below that managed in the same period last year, reflecting the severity of Covid-19’s impact on the economy.

Data from Gaikindo, the country’s association for the automotive industry, showed the improvement from May, when only 3,551 cars were sold, as expanding social restrictions imposed by the government to combat the pandemic resulted in sales operations and vehicle registrations being severely disrupted beyond Jakarta. May’s sales numbers were a 95.8% drop from the corresponding month in 2019, as Reuters reports.

Vehicles sales in the republic plummeted following the outbreak, although numbers early this year had also not been encouraging. Domestic car sales in January and February fell 2.4% year-on-year to 159,997 units, while exports fell 21.5% to 103,765 units, highlighting an initial downtrend.

By March, data compiled by conglomerate PT Astra International revealed that sales had dropped by 15%, and April’s numbers showed a 90.6% reduction year-on-year, with just 7,868 units shifted.

The country began lifting restrictions on people’s movements in early June, and Gaikindo said last month that it hoped that business would start to emerge again following the gradual reopening of the economy. In terms of performance, Toyota, Suzuki and Mitsubishi were the brands that led sales numbers in June.

In April, it was reported that the country was projecting total car sales to plunge by 50% this year. Gaikindo has revised its annual sales forecast downwards by 40%, anticipating that just 600,000 units will be sold in the republic this year.

In 2019, a total of 1.03 million cars were sold in the country, while more than 843,000 units were exported in the form of CKD and CBU units. The association has also reduced its export target for 2020 to 175,000 units, well down from an initial target of 350,000 to 400,000 units.

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