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)