Saloon car sales keep Toyota Kenya ahead of rivals
Jul 12th, 2011 | By Angela | Category: Media Release
Toyota Kenya has opened the largest marketshare gap between it and rivals in five years, helped by increased demand for personal cars.
Data from the Kenya Motor Industry (KMI)—the industry lobby — shows that Toyota’s marketshare stood at 25 per cent in the six months to June from 24 per cent in December as the stake held by its main competitor General Motors East Africa (GMEA) dropped.
It relegated GMEA, whose stake in the market dropped to 21 per cent from 24 in December, to the second position —opening a marketshare gap of four per cent that players in the industry say is the largest in recent years.
This comes as the industry sold 5, 930 cars in the six months compared to 5, 501 in the same period last year, a pointer that the sector would take longer to surpass the 13, 135 cars it sold in 2008. The resurgence of Toyota is a signal that the new saloon car market is growing at a faster pace compared to bus and commercial truck market, reversing the market trend that had started to tilt in favour of commercial vehicle sales.
Toyota specialises in selling saloon cars which exposed the company to the negative effects of the global economic recession and the 2008 post-election violence that saw a major decline in new car orders from individuals and corporate Kenya in 2009 and part of last year.
But demand for picks-ups—where Toyota has a wider presence—has been strong, according to the KMI data that show that they accounted for 33 per cent or 1980 cars of 5, 930 sold in the first half. GMEA last year overtook Toyota as Kenya’s top car seller riding on strong demand for buses and trucks. Rita Kavashe, the managing director of GMEA, attributed the shift in market structure to the devastating earthquake in Japan—which created an auto parts crunch for major dealers across the world. “The orders were there but they were affected by the earthquake, which caused delays in our assembly line,” said Ms Kavashe.
“Our rivals who seem to have had a different inventory position appear to have fared better than us. But the second half is looking up and we expect to grow our market share,” she added.
CMC Motors—which sells the Land Rover and Nissan diesel trucks—looks to be the biggest beneficiary of this shift in sales as it grew its market share from 14 per cent in December to 20 per cent. This raises hopes that the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) listed auto dealer will grow profits after its earnings dropped 24.6 per cent to Sh406 million in the year to September. DT Dobie, the seller of luxury car brands Mercedes and Nissan, increased its marketshare to 14 per cent from 12 per cent in December. Simba Colt, which is strong in the commercial truck market through its Mitsubishi brand, saw its marketshare drop to 17 per cent from 20 per cent last year, joining GMEA among dealers who have lost marketshare amid a slight recovery in the overall industry.
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