Toyota Believes Car Sales In Indonesia Are Still 'Fast' In The First Quarter Of 2021

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The market and car sales in the country are estimated to still grow in the first quarter of this year, better than the fourth quarter of 2020.

"We are optimistic that the national car market will be better than the fourth quarter of last year, because economic indicators are also improving and consumer confidence is rising," said Deputy President Director of PT Toyota Astra Motor (TAM) Henry Tanoto as quoted from Antara, Monday, January 4.

He said that since the third quarter, along with the improvement in Indonesia's economy which was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indonesian car market also grew compared to the second quarter of 2020 and continued to improve until the fourth quarter of 2020.

Toyota Indonesia as the market leader and barometer of car sales in Indonesia, for example, has experienced sales growth since the third quarter compared to the second quarter at the start of the pandemic. In the third quarter, Toyota's car sales reached 35,111 units, an increase compared to the second quarter of only 26,366 units.

In October and November 2020, Toyota's sales also continued to increase compared to the previous month's average in the third quarter, namely 13,466 and 17,908 units, so that Toyota's total sales alone in January-November reached 159,450 units.

Henry said that even December car sales continued to improve compared to November 2020. However, he did not want to give the exact figure because it was still being calculated.

"The possibility of national car sales (for all brands) in 2020 will only reach 560,000 units, a sharp decline compared to 2019 which reached over one million units," said Henry.

However, he is optimistic that in 2021 it will be better for the performance of the national car industry and market, because not only are Indonesia's macroeconomic indicators improving, but also the performance of the national manufacturing industry is also slowly increasing, prices for agricultural / plantation commodities have increased, and consumer confidence has increased because of better understand how to deal with a pandemic, and the existence of a vaccine that gives new hope.

"Leasing is also starting to recover. Leasing is very important for the automotive industry because car sales are mostly still on credit," he said.

Therefore, Henry expects car sales to grow in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the fourth quarter of 2021.

"It remains down compared to the same period in 2020, but the decline is lower than 46 percent," he said.