Daihatsu's Grand New Xenia. The car is outmatched by Toyota's Avanza. (Image via detikOto)

Xenia yields to Avanza, sees sales fall

Astra Daihatsu Motor (ADM), the manufacturer of Toyota Avanza and Daihatsu Xenia in Jakarta, stated that Xenia’s declining sales were due to Avanza's export. According to ADM's Marketing Director, Amelia Tjandra, people’s demand for Toyota was bigger than Daihatsu, both domestically and internationally. Therefore, with the limited production facilities, Daihatsu was forced to suppress Xenia’s production.

Daihatsu’s assembly line is the biggest in Indonesia with a capacity of more than 500,000 car units. Despite its name, these assembly lines also assemble Toyota’s product. Therefore, it explains why some of Toyota’s products look similar to Daihatsu’s such as Rush/Terios, Ayla/Agya, and more. In Jakarta, ADM’s main factory is located in Sunter, North Jakarta.

Avanza was included in the export list from Indonesia along with other Toyota units. From January to August, Daihatsu had assembled more than 79,000 Toyota units. Therefore, Xenia had to wait, said Amelia.

While it does not affect Daihatsu negatively, the phenomena caused Xenia’s image to decline. Compared to Wuling Confero, Xenia’s two-month wholesales freefell. In July, Xenia’s sales stood the shortest among the other low Multi-Purpose Vehicle (MPV) at 676 units. In August, the sales worsened at 462 units.

However, Amelia asserted that ADM had done all it could do to hoist Xenia. Per September, Xenia’s production reached about 1,500 units to fulfill the demand.

Source: https://bit.ly/35jwj3J