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T Honda Prospect Motor (HPM), a joint venture between Japan’s third-largest automobile maker, Honda Motor Co., and Indonesia’s Prospect Motor, unveiled on Wednesday the latest model of its Honda City, in a bid to tighten its grip in the country’s mini-sedan market.

HPM president director Tomoki Uchida said that his firm aimed to sell around 2,400 units of the new City, achieving an increased share of the mini-sedan market.

“We’ve already sold this model in Thailand and it’s very successful. So, why can’t we do it here?” he told reporters after the launch of the new model in Jakarta.

The new City features a 1,500 cc i-VTEC engine, which combines power and efficient fuel consumption, and is supported by a 5-speed automatic transmission, torque boost resonator, drive wire, and a paddle-shift feature — similar to Formula-1 racing cars — this would differentiate it from its competitors, said marketing and after-sales service director Jonfis Fandy.

Jonfis said that by introducing the new model, HPM expected to raise its share of the domestic mini-sedan market from 24 percent last year to more than 40 percent this year. The total mini-sedan market is predicted to rise by up to 30 percent to 7,000 units this year.

Since the City entered the Indonesian market in 1996, Honda has cumulatively sold 58,982 units, making it the highest-selling mini-sedan in the domestic market. It competes tightly with Toyota’s Vios.

“We lost our market share last year purely due to a shortage of supply. But whenever there’s supply, the market will rebound. With our new City, we are upbeat we can grab the market again,” Jonfis said.

Honda’s sales were down 35.05 percent to 45,416 units last year due to a disruption of supply after the worst flooding in a decade hit Thailand and submerged its production facilities in Ayutthaya, central Thailand. The Thai flood hampered production recovery after the Japanese earthquake last March.

According to the Indonesian Automotive Industry Association (Gaikindo) statistics, during the January-April period, Honda sold 11,875 units, down 32.5 percent from 15,735 units in the same period last year, as supply from flood-stricken Thailand was still recovering.

Honda had said it anticipated its sales of all models to reach 70,000 units this year, up 54.13 percent from last year, as increased supplies from Thailand of the Civic and Accord models would arrive in June and July respectively.

Recently, HPM announced its plans to build a new automobile plant in Karawang, West Java, with an anticipated investment of Rp 3.1 trillion (US$334.8 million) to meet rising demand for vehicles in the domestic and regional market.

The plant, slated to commence operations the first quarter of 2014, will triple the firm’s annual production capacity to 180,000 units per year and help it reach its sales target of 210,000 units by the end of 2015.

The plant will make new models including the Brio, which is currently made in Thailand. At present the existing production facility in Karawang produces various models, including the Jazz, CR-V and Freed.

Buoyed by the country’s economy growing at 6.5 percent in the past year and high level of domestic consumption, sales of cars — an indicator of consumption in the Southeast biggest economy — broke a new record high of 894,180 units, up 16.93 percent from 2010, according to Gaikindo data.

Several major automobile makers, including Toyota and Daihatsu, have poured more investment in Indonesia to further tap into the local booming automotive market.