According to the statistics of relevant institutions, the share of Chinese cars in Singapore’s new car market has risen sharply, approaching 20%, among which BYD even won the second place in brand sales in August.

New car sales in Singapore surged 55.4% year on year to 3,949 units in August 2024. Cumulative sales from January to August were 26,442 vehicles, up 45.7% year on year.

Although the size of Singapore’s car market is small compared with Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, which have annual sales of one million units, 800,000 units, Singapore has the significance of the Southeast Asian market vane, and consumers in many countries will refer to the car market

New car sales in Singapore surged 55.4% year on year to 3,949 units in August 2024. Cumulative sales from January to August were 26,442 vehicles, up 45.7% year on year.

Although Singapore’s car market is small compared with Indonesia’s annual sales of one million units, Thailand and Malaysia’s 800,000 units, it has the significance of the Southeast Asian market, and consumers in many other countries will refer to Singapore’s car sales trends. Therefore, Singapore is a “small but influential” stop for Chinese cars in the process of entering the Southeast Asian market.

Chinese cars have made great strides in Singapore so far this year. In August, BYD sold 504 cars, a close second to Toyota’s 566. While Toyota edged down 3.1% year over year, BYD surged 284.7%. Cumulative sales in the previous eight months were 4,383 for Toyota and 3,609 for BYD. Byd already has the firepower to compete for the title.

At the same time, MG Singapore sales are also recovering rapidly, with a 472.7 per cent year-on-year increase in August. Gac, which sells about the same amount of cars as MG, has started to capture 1.6 per cent of the market, despite being a new entrant. These two brands made it into the TOP20 list of car brands sold in Singapore.

Most of the other Chinese brands, such as XPeng, Geely, Great Wall, Chery and Lotte (under the Chinese arm of parent Geely), have either surged year on year or are new entrants to the Singapore market.

According to the corporation, Chinese brands sold 719 units in Singapore in August, with a market share of 18.2 percent. In the first eight months, 4,468 units were sold, with a market share of 16.9%.

In contrast, the share of Japanese cars in Singapore has been diluted by Chinese brands, whose sales growth has been slower than that of Chinese cars. Tesla has also underperformed Chinese NEVs in Singapore, selling 969 cars in the first half of this year, just 28 more than in the same period last year. Tesla sold 1,451 cars in the January-August period, less than half that of BYD.

Singapore, a wealthy island nation of just 5.9 million people, has the world’s highest tax rate on cars, with owners having to buy a certificate that costs about 100,000 Singapore dollars (US $74,000). Therefore, in fact, there is little price difference between BYD and Tesla in Singapore. Chinese car brands cannot only rely on price advantage to win in Singapore. They can achieve their current achievements more by relying on product strength and marketing ability.

In BYD’s case, in addition to its product prowess, the company has focused on marketing efforts in Singapore, opening two restaurants in the city showroom where customers can sample dishes inspired by its models and book a test drive.

In addition, Singapore’s push to electrize cars is good for Chinese cars. The country plans to end sales of internal combustion engine cars by 2030. Electric vehicles now account for a third of Singapore’s car market.

Singapore is a bellwether for Southeast Asia, and just as Tesla is lagging behind China in Singapore, it is lagging behind in Southeast Asia as a whole.

In Southeast Asia, Tesla’s market share fell to 4% in the first quarter of this year from 6% in the same period last year, even as the overall EV market grew 37% in the same period, according to the latest data from research firm Counterpoint.

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