Japanese brands surge on private-hire demand

Singapore

WHAT a difference three months make.

In the course of a quarter, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi have raced up the sales charts on strong private-hire demand, amid a 68 per cent jump in total car registrations in the first nine months of this year.

Honda is now Singapore's most popular brand after overtaking perennial favourite Toyota, which has slipped to runner-up position, according to the Land Transport Authority.

Also ascending is Mazda, which has jumped one place from the first half to become the third most popular brand.

But it is the unassuming Mitsubishi which has made the best of the July-September period to speed up three places to No 7.

From January to September 2016, a total of 65,412 cars were registered, or two-thirds more than the 38,933 put on the road during the same period in 2015.

Honda leads the way with 13,909 cars from January to September 2016 (see table). The number includes both official and parallel imports, with the latter being cars not purchased from authorised distributors. Purchases by private-hire companies are believed to have added to the immense popularity of the Vezel compact SUV, thus making Honda the market leader.

The Vezel is a parallel import. It is the Japanese domestic version of the HR-V, which is the export model offered by authorised Honda distributor Kah Motor.

Toyota, which was the top brand in the first half of 2016, slips to No 2 with 13,794 cars. Before this, Toyota was Singapore's top make for two years running in 2014 and 2015.

Mercedes-Benz and BMW retain their positions from the first half - fifth and sixth respectively.

But Subaru, Hyundai and Volkswagen all move down one notch as Mitsubishi leapfrogs the trio.

Mitsubishi's strong performance was largely powered by the diminutive Attrage, a budget mini-sedan which was snapped up by private-hire companies.

Almost from nowhere, the Attrage has become Singapore's sixth most popular model (among authorised distributors), with its year-to-date registrations of 1,252 units representing 44 per cent of total Mitsubishi sales.

The top three models (among authorised distributors) remain unchanged from the end of H1 - the Toyota Corolla Altis, Mazda3 and Nissan Qashqai.

The Mazda3 is another model which is also popular with private-hire companies, and a significant number of the 2,840 units of this compact sedan is said to have been bought by them from authorised Mazda distributor Eurokars.

Further down the model rankings, the Toyota Wish is now No 4 after trading places with the Hyundai Elantra.

More interesting is the fact that the Nissan X-Trail has moved into the Top 10 at No 8 while the Nissan Sylphy has dropped from seventh to 10th spot. Their movements are reflective of the strong shift in consumer tastes from sedan models to SUVs.