Singapore Car Sales By Brand : 2013

The Mercedes E-Class (pic not taken in Singapore by the way)

The government of Singapore wishes to minimise congestion, which makes sense. It does it through a system of potential car buyers bidding for a certificate of entitlement, which you need to buy a car. The number of COEs is controlled, limiting new cars. How it fails is that it puts the price of basic cars too high, whereas the COE represents a smaller percentage of a more expensive car. The effect is seen below, where premium marques take centre stage. Jaguar outsells Hyundai, Porsche trumps Peugeot, and Bentley heads off Renault.

With a 19.5% decrease in unit sales, most brands went backwards, only those shaded green beat the odds. The blue colour representing market share gain with less sales is common with many of the top selling makes.

All in all, a very unusual situation. It makes sense to limit car sales, but perhaps a system that doesn't favour prestige marques so much. Still, they do have good public transport, so getting around is not a problem.

11	12	13		Sales	Share	+/-
2	2	1	Mercedes	3,871	17.2%	-10%
1	1	2	BMW	3,731	16.6%	-26%
3	3	3	Toyota	3,459	15.4%	-19%
4	4	4	VW	2,874	12.8%	-19%
5	5	5	Audi	1,797	8.0%	7%
9	7	6	Volvo	938	4.2%	-12%
18	18	7	Mazda	635	2.8%	82%
10	8	8	Nissan	624	2.8%	-9%
14	14	9	Jaguar	485	2.2%	26%
6	6	10	Hyundai	460	2.0%	-60%
8	11	11	Honda	423	1.9%	-18%
21	15	12	Land Rover	365	1.6%	-5%
12	12	13	Porsche	363	1.6%	-28%
13	10	14	Peugeot	295	1.3%	-47%
7	9	15	Kia	268	1.2%	-55%
11	13	16	Chevrolet	256	1.1%	-41%
20	17	17	Ford	208	0.9%	-41%
22	21	18	Subaru	201	0.9%	49%
15	19	19	MINI	184	0.8%	-35%
16	16	20	Citroen	172	0.8%	-52%
30	24	21	Bentley	125		34%
19	22	22	Renault	121		6%
29	23	23	Opel	120		21%
17	20	24	Suzuki	85		-41%
25	26	25	Ferrari	69		-14%
36	32	26	Rolls Royce	58		18%
26	25	27	Maserati	56		-33%
42	27	28	Infiniti	34		-53%
33	34	29	Chrysler	31		-18%
23	29	30	Mitsubishi	29		-52%
-	36	31	Mclaren	25		-24%
31	30	32	Lamborghini	23		-59%
38	38	33	Aston Martin	18		-18%
32	32	34	Alfa Romeo	17		-65%
24	37	35	Fiat	12		-50%
			Others	40
			Total	22,472		-19%

Sales data: Thanks to LTA Singapore.

Unless Sir would prefer to go upmarket somewhat