Bangladesh: Toyota Corolla and Noah most popular – or is it the Mitsubishi Pajero?

Toyota Corolla

* See more street scenes by clicking on the title! *

UPDATE: Thanks to the hard work of Myk I can now share with you more information about car sales in Bangladesh. And this market is booming, with 4,500 brand new cars sold in 2010 compared to 3,000 in 2009 and 2,050 in 2008. And surprise in the brands ranking: Mitsusbishi grabs a mammoth 45% of the tiny market with 2,025 units, followed by Toyota at 945 and 21% and Nissan at 585 and 13%. Could the Mitsubishi Pajero lead the models ranking while the Corolla is everywhere on the roads?

Mitsubishi Pajero

The explanation is simple: on top of the 4,500 new cars imported in Bangladesh in 2010, there were 25,500 ‘reconditioned’ imported vehicles sold that year, down from 26,350 in 2009. These came mostly from Japan and potentially included lots of Toyotas, being the source of most cars on Bengali roads. It is to be noticed that sales of reconditioned vehicles were only 8,500 in 2006, up to 10,244 in 2007 and 14,942 in 2008.

High taxes imposed on Indian imports make the Bengali car market very different to its neighbour India. Japanese brands do not suffer from high import taxes and as a result Toyota holds 80% of the market and should in all likelihood place the Corolla in pole position by far, a feat that would be absolutely impossible in India due to its high price there.

Toyota Noah

Another element to take into account is that the Bengali car market is only just starting to blossom, with the car still an extravagance only reserved to the elite, therefore having a ‘luxury’ car (in the region’s standards) on top of the sales ranking kind of makes sense.

Toyota Premio

The other Toyotas successful in Bangladesh are the Noah, Voxy, Allion and Premio. This is not a foolproof estimation and is only based on observation of recent YouTube videos of the streets of the capital Dhaka, so if you have more precise information please ensure you get in touch by commenting on here!

More photos below.