Car sales remain steady despite election chaos<\/p>\n
By John Aglionby<\/p>\n
SALES of new vehicles have remained steady in the lead up to
\nthe general election, in contrast to earlier predictions of
\nsignificant falls.<\/p>\n
Despite vivid pictures in the media of vandalized vehicles and
\nhorror stories of election campaigners clambering all over cars
\nduring rallies, the general election campaign and the ensuing
\nfears of political instability have not affected car sales in the
\nlast month as much as dealers had anticipated.<\/p>\n
All companies contacted said they had projected a drop-off in
\nsales but few said the downturn had been as large as they had
\nexpected.<\/p>\n
Bintoro Tjitrowirjo, general manager of PT Tjahja Sakti Motor
\nCorp which distributes BMWs in Indonesia, said: "We are glad that
\nthe campaign ended yesterday but it did not have that much of an
\neffect on sales. The figures compare well with the same period
\nlast year.<\/p>\n
"And we offer fully comprehensive insurance when we sell a BMW
\nso, people buying our cars do not have much to worry about
\nanyway."<\/p>\n
Mitsubishi's vice president, Herman Latif, said the company's
\nsales have also held up well. He said that sales in the last
\nthree months were 16 percent up on the same period last year.<\/p>\n
"We had anticipated a slight decline in sales but there was
\nalmost no significant effect," he said.<\/p>\n
Toyota's marketing executive, Darmadji, said his company had
\nexpected sales to dip during the campaign. "From our experience
\nof previous campaigns, people tend to postpone activities such as
\nbuying cars until things have settled down again, but as far as
\nwe can tell our market share is still stable."<\/p>\n
Lela Pello, of Mercedes Benz, echoed Darmadji's sentiments.
\n"If you look at our business from an overall perspective we do
\nnot seem to be affected by the election.<\/p>\n
"However, there does seem to be a bit of a wait-and-see
\nattitude among buyers. Some people are postponing buying until
\nafter the election but we expect any decreases to be only very
\ntemporary in nature."<\/p>\n
This was confirmed by a couple coming out of a South Jakarta
\nBMW showroom. Arief Widianto said: "We have been planning to
\nreplace our four-year-old for some time. However, we thought it
\nwould be safer and less risky to wait until next month.<\/p>\n
"It's not that we live in a violent neighborhood but one just
\nis never quite sure what is going to happen at any time."<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/car-sales-remain-steady-despite-election-chaos-1447893297",
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