Honda: Car prices to fall post-GST

SHAH ALAM: Honda Malaysia Sdn Bhd expects its vehicles prices to be reduced between 1-2% on average, after the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) in April this year.
He said the slight decline is primarily due to the 4% gap, as the proposed GST rate of 6% is lower than the current 10% of Sales and Service Tax (SST).
"Currently the SST is 10% of the factory price and GST is 6% for the retail price. The difference is because of the 4% gap. Maybe 1% to 2% decline (of car prices) can be expected," its managing director and CEO Yoichiro Ueno told reporters after launching the New CR-V (Comfortable Runabout Vehicle) yesterday.
Yoichiro, who is targeting 85,000 sales units this year, said the drop of the car prices is expected for almost of its models, depending on each model as the SST is different for each car.
"Our sales target this year of 85,000 units is to acquire 12% of the market share. One of the activities to achieve this target is to constantly excite the market with new product, where we are launching this year, the New CR-V," he said, noting the New CR-V starts from RM139, 800 with insurance for the 2.0L 2WD, and RM150, 800 for the 2.0L 4WD.
He said the group is confident to achieve the sales target, foreseeing year-on-year growth of 4.5% to 697,000 units for the total industry volume (TIV) this year.
He said to support the new sales target, the group will continue to excite its customers with quality products, new models, efficient product-to-market time and excellent services.
Last year, the group has exceeded its 76, 000 units sales target, where it achieved 77, 485 units, translated to an increase in market share to 11.6% against 2014 TIV of 667, 000 units.
Commenting on the impact of the depreciation of ringgit against Thai baht to its business performance, he said the impact is not huge as currently the major sales of its parts are from Thailand.
Moving forward, Honda is planning to expand its network of dealers nationwide, in which currently it has 77 dealers in Malaysia and targeting to increase to 90 dealers by 2016.