P

T Honda Prospect Motor (HPM) said it would further increase the company’s production capacity and launch more new models this year to grab a larger market share in the country’s growing car market.

HPM, which is the country’s sole agent and assembler of Honda automobiles and components, was aiming to increase its sales by 44 percent to 100,000 cars this year, president director Tomoki Uchida said on Wednesday.

“This [2013 target] would be another record-breaking figure and we would take Honda’s business in Indonesia to a higher level than ever before. To do so, we must maintain the high quality and innovation of our products, distribution network and services in order to fulfill the market activity and to keep our customers happy,” Uchida said.

This year’s target of a 44 percent increase would be huge additional growth following HPM’s sales volume last year, which reached 69,320 cars, a 52.6 percent increase from its 2011 sales volume of 45,416 units that, at the time, was the company’s all-time sales high.

One of its new models, the Honda Brio, contributed significantly to HPM’s sales. As many as 8,002 Honda Brios were sold between August — when the car was launched — and December 2012.

HPM has started the year positively. According to the company’s data, its car sales totaled 5,746 units in January, increasing more than 3.5 times from 1,553 units in January last year.

The new Honda Jazz, which was launched on Jan. 22, also contributed greatly with sales reaching 2,337. HPM also reported that CR-V sales totaled 1,891 units; the Freed, 922 units; Brio, 444 units; the City, 96 units; the Civic, 53 units; the Odyssey, 2 units; and the Accord, 1 unit.

The national market saw a 27 percent increase in car sales to 97,232 in January compared to 76,427 sold in the same period last year, according to figures provided by the Association of Indonesian Automotive Manufactures (Gaikindo).

The country’s national car sales rose 25 percent to 1.1 million cars in 2012 from 894,164 cars in 2011. This year, total sales are expected to increase to 1.2 million cars.

HPM marketing and after sales service director Jonfis Fandy said that the company expected its market share to stand at 8.7 percent this year, up by about 2 percentage points from 6.2 percent last year.

The targeted increase in sales, according to Jonfis, would be supported by HPM’s five new models, the New Jazz, CR-Z, All New Accord plus two others that he declined to reveal.

“One of the [unnamed] models is a city car and the other is new take on one of our existing models,”
Jonfis said.

In an attempt to support the higher sales target, HPM has increased its factory capacity to 80,000 cars per year from 60,000. The company is also working on a second factory, which will have a production capacity of 120,000 cars a year. The second factory, whose construction is estimated to cost Rp 3.1 trillion, will boost HPM’s total capacity to 200,000 cars a year when it is completed early next year.

Besides the increase in production capacity, HPM is also planning to launch more dealerships to strengthen its sales network. The company currently has 120 dealerships across the country and is planning to have up to 150 dealers by 2014.

According to Jonfis, the company needed to invest around Rp 100 billion to open a new sales outlet in Jakarta but costs should be lower in other areas.