Thailand May 2020: Small COVID footprint can’t prevent market off -54.1%

The new Isuzu D-Max is back above the Toyota Hilux in May.

24/07 update: Now with Top 55 models.

Even though Thailand has remained unscathed by the coronavirus with only 3.146 cases at the time of writing, its automotive industry is still reeling from the factory closures that enabled such a contained sanitary crisis in the first place. New vehicle sales in May are down another -54.1% year-on-year to 40.418 units, pulling the year-to-date tally down -38.2% to 270.591. Toyota (-53.7%) almost exactly matches the market to 33.6% share while Isuzu (-35.3%) resists very well to climb to 25.1% share vs. 21.9% so far this year. Below, Honda (-62.8%) and Mitsubishi (-62.1%) underperform as do Mazda (-61.7%) and Ford (-70.1%) in the remainder of the Top 10 but Suzuki (-38%), MG (-38.3%), Hino (-38.4%) and to a lesser extent Nissan (-50.4%) all score strong holds. Model-wise, the Isuzu D-Max (-32.5%) is back above the Toyota Hilux (-48.4%) for the 4th time this year with the Honda City holding the third spot above the Mitsubishi Triton (-48.2%) and Toyota Fortuner (-46.9%) just as the Ford Ranger (-72.8%) implodes to #8.

Previous month: Thailand April 2020: Toyota up to 36.7% share, Hilux back to #1 in market down -65%

One year ago: Thailand May 2019: Chevrolet (+36.4%), Toyota (+10.2%), Isuzu (+9.2%) can’t help weakest market gain in 2 years (+3.2%)

Full May 2020 Top 25 All-brands and Top 55 models below.