Cumulative car registrations in Singapore, January-June 2005

By Colin Yong

IT LOOKS LIKE small is the new big, at least in the local car scene. Figures released earlier this month by the Motor Traders Association of Singapore show that Category A models (those below 1,600cc) now account for a larger portion of the entire market compared to the same period last year.

Although the sales split between Category A and B cars is partially determined by the COE allocation at the beginning of each quota year, the jokers in the pack are the Category E COEs. These ‘Open Cat’ certificates can be used to register any vehicle, but were in the past used almost exclusively for Cat B cars. Not any more, as the latest numbers indicate.

A record 55,780 passenger cars were registered in the first half of 2005, with the Toyota Corolla Altis remaining the best-seller with a market share of 12.2 percent, up 0.4 percent from H1 2004. Similar gains were posted by the other top-ranked cars such as the Nissan Sunny, Toyota Vios and Mitsubishi Lancer.

On the other hand, the most popular large cars in Singapore have seen their unit sales figures drop this year. In a growing market that saw 7,794 more new cars finding homes than over the same period last year, this reduction translated into a dramatic fall in overall market share.

REPLACEMENT MARKET SHRINKS
So why are people shying away from bigger cars? Most industry observers believe that today’s low COE prices are to blame. “Cat B models typically cater to the replacement market,” explained the sales manager of a major Japanese brand to CarBuyer.

“While they are super cheap now, the people who would normally buy them are in turn unwilling to sell their current cars because they will only get scrap value for them. The low COE prices have effectively killed the second-hand market, especially for bigger cars.”

This explains why lower-priced Cat B cars have been less affected by this situation – they tend to be bought by more first-time car buyers or owners of older cars who don’t have to take huge depreciation hits.

Sales of the Mazda 6, for instance, went up from 351 in H1 2004 to 414 this year, while the Hyundai Tuscani found 20 more buyers despite having its turf invaded by the Honda Integra.

CAT A CARS DOMINATE TOP 10
The upper half of the best-sellers chart for H1 2005 might not look too different from that of H1 2004, but the Toyota Camry is now the sole surviving Cat B car in the list. Even it is heading south though, slipping two places to number seven. The Nissan Cefiro and Toyota Picnic, H1 2004’s number eight and nine respectively, have been replaced in the top 10 by the Hyundai Getz and Nissan Latio.

There’s a bit of a shake-up in the executive car order, too. BMW has managed to turn the tables on Mercedes-Benz in the luxury sedan segment, with the recently-facelifted 7 Series chalking up an impressive 216 registrations to beat the Mercedes-Benz S-Class which had 203. The E-Class still leads the 5 Series in the big sedan class, though.

H1 2005 CAR SALES BY MODEL
Pos - Model - Units
1 - Toyota Corolla Altis - 6,833
2 - Nissan Sunny - 6,249
3 - Toyota Vios - 2,727
4 - Mitsubishi Lancer - 2,233
5 - Hyundai Matrix - 1,941
6 - Hyundai Getz - 1,791
7 - Toyota Camry - 1,644
8 - Honda Civic - 1,635
9 - Mazda 3 - 1,484
10 - Nissan Latio - 1,339

MARKET SHARE COMPARISON OF POPULAR MODELS
Cat A cars are gaining ground at the expense of their larger counterparts

Category A - H1 2005 - H1 2004
Toyota Corolla Altis - 6,833 (12.2%) - 5,683 (11.8%)
Nissan Sunny - 6,249 (11.2%) - 4,578 (9.5%)
Mitsubishi Lancer - 2,233 (4.0%) - 1,693 (3.5%)

Category B - H1 2005 - H1 2004
Toyota Camry - 1,644 (2.9%) - 2,183 (4.5%)
Nissan Cefiro - 897 (1.6%) - 1,489 (3.1%)
Mercedes-Benz E-Class - 742 (1.3%) - 996 (2.1%)