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Honda Cars Philippines Inc. said it is eyeing higher
sales and plans to launch more models also this year, pinning its
hopes on the positive outlook of the local automotive industry, a
company executive said.
Hiroshi Shimizu, Honda
Philippines president, told reporters on the sidelines of the launch
of the third-generation City on Wednesday that the company is
confident that the global economic downturn would not have much
impact on its operations and the Philippine auto industry.
“Compared to other markets, the
car sales volume in the Philippines is not dropping,” he said.
While sales and operations of car
manufacturers elsewhere are badly hit by the global financial
crisis, the local subsidiary of the Japanese carmaker projects that
it sales will increase this year by at least 10 percent compared
with a year ago, Shimizu said. Honda Philippines sold approximately
14,300 units in 2008, he added.
Last year, Honda Philippines
experienced a sales slowdown as it posted a contraction of 17
percent. The company president attributed this to decreased sales in
most segments, limited stocks and the lack of new model offerings.
The second-generation Jazz was launched only in the latter part of
last year.
“2008 was a tough year for
us,” he said.
Honda Philippines’ exports of
transmission and automotive parts to Europe, India and other Asean
countries also slightly went down last year, the executive said.
But despite these past setbacks,
Honda Philippines is optimistic that the new City would boost sales,
as the company targets to sell about 7,000 units of the model this
year, Shimizu said. The firm invested P140 million for the
production of the new City model, he added.
Besides the fully overhauled
City, the company would also launch several models that have minimal
changes this year, Shimizu said, but he did not disclose details.
The company president said they
would maintain the current production volume of their locally
manufactured units in their Santa Rosa, Laguna plant but they would
increase the production of the new City by almost double this year.
City and Civic models sold locally are assembled in the country, and
these accounted for 65.5 percent of total sales of Honda Philippines
last year. Other models, such as the Accord, CRV and Jazz, are
exported from Thailand.
Meanwhile, they would adjust the
production volume of their parts exports, the company president
said.
Shimizu said that if the costs of
various raw materials and production go up, then prices of their
cars would also have to follow. Honda Philippines last year
implemented minimal price increases of between 2 percent to 3
percent, Shimizu said.
The Honda executive also assured
their employees that there would be no layoffs.
--Ben Arnold O. de Vera
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