Honda Cars Philippines Inc. (HCPI) has set an aggressive growth in sales this year from the 10 percent growth it posted in 2022, but said recovery to the pre-pandemic level is still unlikely to happen this year as the global supply chain issue will continue to hound the industry this year.
HCPI General Manager for Sales Louie Soriano said they are setting an aggressive growth in 2023, but refused to divulge the exact figure, except saying that it will surpass the 2022 growth.
Growth this year will be supported with three new model launches, including one passenger car and one sports utility vehicles (SUVs). The first model for the year Honda Civic Type R (FL5) was just launched last week.
Also HCPI will be relying on the sales of a small BR-V with sales target of 900 to 1,000 units a month. Since its launched late in November last year, BR-V has already sold over a thousand units. BR-V is also being positioned against Toyota’s Rush and Mitsubishi’s Expander.
“This is where we can compete,” he said noting that the small sports utility vehicle category is still the fastest growing in the market. BR-V has four variants to choose from with its top of the line getting the most demand because of its safety features or the Honda SENSING, he said.
City is still its best-selling model, with 3,500 units sold last year and Brio with 3,500 and the old BR-V with 3,300 units last year.
Soriano said that HCPI expects the overall motor vehicle industry to hit 400,000-unit sales level this year from over 370,000 units in 2022. This is still below the 2019 level at over 425,000 units. Full recovery is expected in 2024 yet when global supply problem, particularly on automotive semiconductor electronics, normalizes.
In fact, he said, the company’s backlog on orders for some of their products ranges from nine months to one year already.