Suzuki re-evaluates its presence in Thailand and looks at South East Asia as a whole now.
Japanese automaker Suzuki has recently announced a number of changes to their South East Asia strategy. The brand has been lagging behind competitors like Mitsubishi and Daihatsu in the region and now aims to remedy the problems. The first step for the company is to shut down its plant in Rayong Thailand by the end of 2025. This plant has been producing vehicles under the Thai Eco Car scheme but additional competition and a lack of a new plan from the Thai government has forced Suzuki to take a more holistic view of South East Asia moving forward.
Another reason for Suzuki’s move away from Thailand is the shrinking Total Industry Volume there. In the first 6 months of 2024, only 307,995 vehicles were sold there. This is almost 100,000 fewer cars than the year before. The drop in sales is attributed to the shift toward newer Chinese vehicles as well as Covid-era economic issues that led to a lot of vehicles being repossessed and financing for new vehicles becoming much more difficult.
Suzuki’s sales network in Thailand has also shrunk from 127 dealers to 92 dealers in the last year.
How does this affect South East Asians?
For the Thais, we can expect all Suzukis to be imported by next year. Right now only the Celerio and Swift are made in Thailand and they already get Indonesian-made Ertiga, XL7 and Carry models. Four new models from Indonesia, Japan and India will be launched in Thailand. This may include hybrid and electric vehicles.
Malaysia’s Suzuki distributor, Naza Eastern Motors, already imports two models from Japan – the Swift and Jimny. If Suzuki can come up with a competitive India-made EV before 2026, we could see the introduction of that in our market. The Suzuki eVX concept is a hot contender as it has an expected range of 550km per charge but it’s not in production yet. It’s unclear if mild hybrid models like the Suzuki Fronx have a place in Malaysia under this new strategy as there are now significant tax advantages in place.
Overall, the biggest winner in South East Asia is Indonesia as the plant there will only be getting more investment from Japan. The Thai plant only makes 10,000 cars a year at its current rate and will not be receiving further investment. Suzuki already has a large plant in Indonesia where 100,000 vehicles are made a year (including the Ertiga, which was sold as a Proton some time ago). Meanwhile their plants in India make 2 MILLION cars a year and are anticipated to double in production capacity by 2030. This is pretty insane considering Suzuki only makes 1 million cars a year in its home country.
