New chief aims to double Eneos lubricants sales

Eiichiro Iwase said the company plans to build more Eneos brand awareness, expand dealer networks, and fine-tune strategy to achieve 100-per-cent sales growth in 2018.
Iwase spent six years in China and two years in India before being appointed to head the Thai operations.
“Although I used to work in China and India, where the lubricants markets are very big, Thailand is a very strong and competitive market,” he said. “In addition, Thailand’s automotive market is mostly Japanese vehicles which our headquarters has set as a priority group for lubricants outside Japan,” he said.
“Currently, Eneos is Japan’s No. 1 oil company, with sales volume exceeding 2,100 million litres per year worldwide. Thailand’s automotive market is dominated by Japanese vehicles but not many consumers are aware of the Eneos brand. However, many Thai people have visited Japan during the last 4-5 years and we hope they would have seen the many Eneos service stations in Japan. We want to build the Eneos brand awareness as well as increase availability of our products in Thailand,” Iwase said.
Iwase said the company sold 1 million litres of lubricants here last year and hopes to double sales this year.
“Our priority is to build more Eneos brand awareness. Then, we would like to communicate to consumers about Eneos products and quality. We also plan to expand our dealer network from 700 outlets at present to support our sales target. In addition, we will also focus on pricing strategy and sales promotion to ensure our products will have the right price positioning and convince the consumers to purchase and use Eneos products,” Iwase said.