Honda's Thai cars back on track
Australian deliveries of Thai-built Honda vehicles have resumed more than six months after the catastrophic floods hit ThailandHonda Australia's supply bottleneck is starting to ease now that its Thai factories have delivered the first cars to Australia.
Around 80 per cent of the Honda motor vehicles sold in Australia come from the Ayutthaya factory in Thailand, making it a crucial part of the of the company's local growth plan. The company has survived with imports from Japan but to be competitive it needs the Thai factories to be fully operational.
The company is targetting 40,000 new car sales in 2012, a big increase over the 2011 total of around 30,000.
Honda Australia's Director and General Manager Sales and Marketing, Stephen Collins, said the first shipment of cars to Australia since the floods hit Thailand in October 2011 will strengthen its position.
"The Ayutthaya factory in Thailand is vital to the success of Honda Australia, with 80 percent of stock sourced from this factory. This is our first shipment of vehicles in many months and includes Jazz, Civic, CR-V and new-look City models."
For the last six months Honda has been sourcing stock from Japan, but Mr Collins says that vehicles from Thailand will benefit the hip pockets of customers.
"Product from this factory benefits our customers in two ways. They receive high-quality products built to Honda’s stringent global standards as well as competitive pricing as a result of the Australia-Thai Free Trade Agreement," Mr. Collins said.
Though the shipments of cars from Thailand is still not back to where it was before the 2011 floods, Honda expects to have optimum supply from July 2012.
The importer says it is on track to reach its sales target of 40,000 sales this year, as key models like the new Civic sedan are selling strongly, and will be bolstered by the all-new CR-V in the last three months of 2012.
"To date, Honda has been tracking on target, with 2,485 units sold in April and excellent sales of the all-new Civic sedan [1,804 sales since March 2012], Jazz Vibe [2,617 sales YTD] and Accord Euro [2,637 YTD]," said Mr. Collins.
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