Publicly listed PT Astra International is boosting its automotive sales performance in the first half of 2010 by 10 to 15 percent up on last year’s sales of 281,000 cars and 5.9 million motorcycles, its president director said on Wednesday.
“The reason why we are boosting our sales is because we are worried about the planned implementation of the progressive tax and the restriction of the sales of subsidized fuel later this year,” Prijono Sugiarto said after a stakeholders’ meeting.
The Jakarta administration is planning to enforce progressive taxation on automotive ownership with a rate of 1 to 2 percent on the first vehicle owned by an individual and 2 to 10 percent on subsequent vehicles. Meanwhile, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry is plans to restrict the use of subsidized fuel.
He said these regulations could reduce automotive sales by 30 percent, as in 2005 when government raised fuel prices. “Indonesia is actually in good condition for automotive sales as the economy is growing positively,” Prijono said.
Astra corporate communications head Yulian Warman told The Jakarta Post that one of the marketing strategies to attract consumers was cooperation among financing, showroom and insurance companies in introducing sales packages.
“It helped boost sales in the first quarter,” Yulian said. He said Astra increased production to boost sales.
Yulian gave an example that one of Astra’s subsidiaries, PT Astra Daihatsu Motor, increased its monthly production to 26,000 vehicles in March from 18,000 last year.
Astra said in a report that its car sales in the first four months increased by 75.1 percent to 135,021 units from 77,074 in the same period last year, while its motorcycle sales rose by 42.46 percent to 1.05 units from 740,312 last year.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Astra decided to distribute a dividend of Rp 4.53 trillion (US$4.84 million) or 45 percent of its net profit in 2009.
“We will use the rest of the net profit to expand our business in the automotive sector as the demand on is high,” Prijono said, while mentioning that total net profit in 2009 was Rp 10.34 trillion, a 9 percent increase up on Rp 9.19 trillion in 2008. (not)
