Indonesian International Motor Show 2012
City Car Saga
At last! The long awaited IIMS 2012 is finally there! We were being welcomed by the long queue of car fans behind the locket (after lunch, it became more crowded ), showing high enthusiasm of domestic auto demand in general and low cost green car (LCGC) in particular. Yes! This year show belongs to low cost green car or in a wider theme, city car. Well, the official theme is “Eco-Mobility”.
Toyota and its brother Daihatsu are courageously giving the first attack on LCGC market by presenting the low cost 1.0L twin, Toyota Agya and Daihatsu Ayla even though LCGC incentive regulation finalization is still under discussion. Prices are still undecided but it will be within range of IDR100m-110m for Agya and IDR70mIDR100m for Ayla.
Earlier, besides fulfilling government mission on providing low cost entry car, reducing usage of carbon fuel, and decreasing pollution, Astra as the sole agent also aims to capture a slice of secondary market pie. Besides Toyota and Daihatsu, several other players also intend to enter the competition, namely Nissan and Suzuki, but we still didn’t see the slight hint on the model in this show.
Surprisingly (or maybe not), Honda is one of the latest player that bring new model of city car several months before the show, 1.3L Brio, the little brother of Jazz in term of engine, size, and price. It is not an LCGC at IDR150m-IDR180m but it is indeed an interesting city car and also the lowest end of Honda product array, also a great attempt from Honda in order to expand its target segments. Similar to Honda, the king of Indonesian commercial vehicle and double cabin, Mitsubishi is also striking out of its comfort zone, presenting Mirage, another city car with price tag of IDR150m-IDR180m.
Besides these new entrants we also being reminded that along the wide range of low to mid class city car there are also already existed Suzuki Splash, Nissan March, and Daihatsu Sirion from the mainstream Indonesian players and Kia Picanto, Hyundai New Avega, Geely Panda, and Ford Fiesta from the non Japanese late participants. Now the IDR70m-220m is surely packed with every slice of the segment being filled.
Okay, what do we think?
We are keen with the Agya and its twin, the looks and the interior is quite fun for the given price tag (except for the lowest end of Ayla type that has no aircon) and surprisingly even with the small exterior size, the interior is very spacey. We think it will be a significant contribution for Astra revenue, but we stick to our initial perception that city car needs more time to penetrate MPV-minded Indonesian consumer. In the higher segment, we enjoy Brio and pretty much neglected the others.
Last and not least, we found that the new Agya and Ayla are using Gajah Tunggal products, a good sign.
