Car sales fell 74% in February

Car sales fell 74% in February

JAKARTA (JP): The economic calamity is having a devastating
effect on the country's floundering car industry, dragging down
domestic sales about 54 percent in January and a further 74
percent in February compared to the same months last year.

Data from the Association of Indonesian Automotive Industries
shows the sales of both passenger and commercial vehicles has
dropped to 14,318 cars in January from 31,760 cars in the same
period last year.

Sales fell to 6,431 cars in February from 24,424 cars in
February 1997, the association reported.

Commercial vehicle sales dropped to 11,293 in January from
24,321 in the previous January, while the figures for passenger
cars fell to 3,025 from 7,439.

In February, sales of commercial vehicles slumped 73 percent
to 5,279 from 20,143, while the sales of passenger cars slid 71
percent to 1,152 from 4,090.

During the first two months of this year, the country's
largest carmaker, PT Astra International, managed to grab most of
the market share in domestic sales with total sales of 6,605 in
January and 3,987 cars in February.

Most of Astra's revenue was generated by the sales of its
commercial cars, including Daihatsu, Isuzu, Nissan Diesel and
Toyota, amounting to 6,200 in January.

Over half of Astra's commercial cars sold in the same period
were its widely popular Toyota Kijang, amounting to 3,720 cars in
January and 2,066 in February.

The company's subsidiary, PT Toyota Astra Motor, said its
Toyota-made cars had the largest market share of 26.7 percent in
January, despite a 41 percent drop in Toyota sales to 3,872
compared to the same period last year.

"Our market share actually increased by 5.5 percent," the
company said in a statement obtained yesterday.

However, Astra did not enjoy the same high figures in the
sales of its passenger cars.

In February, Astra sold 405 passenger cars or 15 percent of
the total passenger cars sold in the previous coinciding month.
As the sales of passenger cars grew more sluggish last month to
964 cars, Astra sold 188 cars.

Astra's passenger cars include BMW, Daihatsu, Peugeot and
Toyota.

Some of the more luxurious cars were lucky to be sold in the
first two months of this year, while some have completely
disappeared from the buyers' list.

In January only two Mercedes-Benz were sold, but the number
picked up to 63 cars last month. There were no Landrovers sold in
the past two months.

Indonesia is suffering the worst economic crisis in 30 years,
with the value of the rupiah eroding more than 70 percent against
the U.S. dollar from its value in July last year. (das)