China Economic News Service - Justin Su, president of Hotai Motor Co. Ltd., agent of Toyota and Lexus in Taiwan, recently said overall new-car sales in Taiwan in May and June exceeded expectations, hence predicts the 2012 market to exceed 360,000 units, higher than his original forecast.
Su's new-car sales forecast in Taiwan topped the twice-reduced forecast to 360,000 units by Kenneth Yen, CEO of Yulon Group, whose affiliates assemble Nissan, Mitsubishi and Luxgen in Taiwan.
Hotai announced self-audited pretax earnings of NT$528 million (US$17.6 million) in May, up 120% year-on-year (YoY), with first-five-month pretax earnings of NT$3.36 billion (US$112.1 million), up 10.5% YoY.
Su said that his company reported good results, including net earnings per share (EPS) of NT$12.1 (US$0.4), and hopes for even better performance this year.
In the second quarter of 2011, Su said, the massive earthquake-tsunami in Japan interrupted the auto-parts supply chain to Toyota and Lexus, as well as Hotai`s quarterly revenues and profits, with clear YoY earning growths in May without further impacts and due to a relative-low comparison base of a year earlier.
The president added that Hotai`s reinvestment returns from affiliated Kuozui Motors Ltd. (assembler of Toyotas in Taiwan), Hotai Leasing Corp. (car-leasing company) should be more lucrative than last year to drive earnings.
Su said that he originally planned to raise his forecast for overall new-car sales in Taiwan this year from 360,000 units, but decided otherwise due to higher gas and electricity prices in Taiwan, as well as economic uncertainties in Europe.
In the past two months or so, he added, despite the company's pessimism, market demand has been very positive to signal better-than-expected year-end sales.
In the first 20 days of June, some 12,100 new cars were sold in Taiwan, down 14.6% YoY.
