Cancellation expected to be below 17% of reserved units
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Of all 1.25 million vehicles reserved under the first-car buyer scheme, no more than 17 per cent would be cancelled, according to the Federation of Thailand's Automotive Industry Club's estimate.
Surapong Paisitpattanapong, spokesman of the club, insisted that this ratio is low, compared to the 20 per cent cancellation ratio for the booking collected at motor shows.
As of July 6, of all 1.25 million vehicles bought under the scheme, 1.04 million have been delivered or 83 per cent.
Surapong said that some cancelled the booking because of fierce competition in the industry, which forces companies to offer better promotions. Some promotion packages are better than what they are offered by the first-car buyer scheme, he said.
Vehicle sales in July totalled 98,251 units. The monthly sale was below 100,000 units for the first time in 15 months.
The industry estimated that domestic vehicle sales would fall from 1.45 million last year, to 1.4 million this year.
Auto companies will need to export more vehicles to offset the declining demand in the domestic market. Export volume this year is expected to reach 1.1 million units this year.
