Sales in South-East Asia’s largest motorcycle market went into reverse during January, after the Indonesian government cranked up interest rates on consumer credit. Volume for the month fell by 10.3 per cent to 579,361 units, according to Indonesia’s motorcycle industry association AISI.
This bad news follows a year of strong recovery in 2013 to an annual tally of about 7.7 million units, with firm gains in 11 of the 12 months. However, that performance was still about half a million bikes below the peak figure achieved a couple of years ago, before the Indonesian authorities began reining in point-of-sale credit by imposing substantial minimum cash deposits for motorcycle purchases.
AISI says the usual suspects maintained their market shares in January. Honda headed up the sales podium, closely pursued by Yamaha. Suzuki was in a distant third spot. India’s Bajaj Auto and the Italian Piaggio Group also have assembly operations in Indonesia, the latter supplying Vespa scooter CKD kits from its SE Asian manufacturing hub in Vietnam.