At the end of the year, domestic cars are racing to reduce prices, while imported cars are still increasing in price.

While many domestically assembled car models have prices reduced by tens of millions of dong, imported car models have increased in price at the end of the year.

The Vietnamese automobile market at the end of the year is witnessing two opposite extremes in the prices of many car models. While domestically assembled car models are continuously adjusted down by manufacturers, imported cars, especially models from ASEAN markets, are increasing in price due to limited supply as manufacturers stop importing cars to wait for tax policies in early 2018.

Many companies announced and reduced prices of domestically assembled cars in 2018.

The first brand to announce the selling price of domestically assembled (CKD) car models is Thaco. All car models assembled by Thaco have announced their selling prices for 2018. Specifically, the KIA Morning is reduced by about 15 million VND while the CX-5 model is reduced by about 20 million VND.

Hyundai Grand i10 model is reduced from 20 - 40 million VND depending on the version.

The next big names to announce the prices of CKD models for 2018 are Toyota Vietnam (TMV) with all CKD models and Hyundai Thanh Cong (HTC) with the small car Grand i10. The Hyundai Grand i10 model is reduced from 20 - 40 million VND depending on the version, the most impressive in the series of CKD cars with adjusted prices by TMV is Toyota Vios with a reduction of 48 - 58 million VND depending on the version.

The latest brand to announce the prices of its models is Nissan Vietnam. The most notable announcement is the price adjustment of the X-Trail crossover model, the X-Trail will have a new price starting from only 852 million VND (including VAT). This is the model with the highest discount on this occasion, up to 127 million VND.

Nissan X-Trail has just had its 2018 price for all versions starting at VND 852 million (including VAT).

Nissan Sunny 2018 price starts from 428 million VND, a reduction of up to 50 million VND. This new selling price for X-Trail and Sunny is applied from December 1, 2017 at Nissan authorized dealers nationwide.

Through these announcements, it can be seen that the selling prices of CKD models, despite preferential import tax on components or special consumption tax, did not decrease too much in 2018.

Imported cars are in short supply, prices are increasing

Meanwhile, in complete contrast to the move of CKD models, many imported models (CBU) are currently showing a tendency to “fix prices” or start cutting promotions and increasing prices again. The most typical case is the most popular SUV model in the Vietnamese market, Toyota Fortuner.

Toyota Fortuner

The Toyota Fortuner SUV imported from Indonesia has increased by 50 - 70 million VND compared to the listed price. The reference price for Fortuner models at the dealer system currently fluctuates between over 1 billion and nearly 1.4 billion VND. Or, customers who want to own a Fortuner at the end of the year will have to buy an additional set of car accessories worth more than 50 million VND to be able to receive the car immediately.

In addition to Fortuner, some other imported car models of Toyota Vietnam such as Yaris, Hilux, Land Cruiser keep the suggested price. However, most dealers said that the number of these car models is not much. And in the coming time (from January to February 2018), dealers will not accept contracts for imported cars.

Explaining this, many businesses said that it takes time to prepare the necessary conditions and procedures to comply with Decree 116/2017/ND-CP of the Government with new regulations on business conditions and automobile imports. In particular, the biggest obstacle that companies encounter is the copy of the quality certificate of imported automobile types, issued by competent foreign agencies and organizations.

However, up to now, the Decree has not provided specific instructions, so companies have not been able to obtain this certificate, nor is it clear what kind of certificate is accepted. Therefore, importing cars will be very risky, if not accepted by Vietnamese authorities, the shipment will have to be re-exported. Many companies have decided to cancel orders and not sign additional contracts for imported cars in January and February 2018 to wait.

Currently, Ford Vietnam has also stopped accepting contracts for customers buying Ranger and Explorer.

Similar to TMV, Ford Vietnam has also announced that it is asking dealers to stop purchasing contracts for Ranger and Explorer models in the coming months until further notice. Immediately after the above move, the Ranger pickup model has begun to receive promotional adjustments.

In addition to the price increase of many CBU models, Vietnamese customers will also miss out on many other popular imported car models in the first two months of 2018 such as Honda CR-V, Toyota Wigo or Suzuki Celerio... This will make it difficult for the Vietnamese car market to flourish as expected before and after the Lunar New Year./.

According to VOV