Diesel pick-up trucks drive Isuzu sales

 

Isuzu Malaysia expects sales of the D-Max to almost double last year's performance with more than 5,000 units expected to be sold

ISUZU Malaysia Sdn Bhd says sales in the first seven months had almost surpassed its volume of 2,885 units for the whole of 2007, driven by the Isuzu pick-up trucks' fuel-saving properties.

A total of 2,732 units of Isuzu D-Max pick-ups were sold in the January-July 2008 period and chief executive officer Kyoya Kondo believes that the tax cut for diesel-engined vehicles announced in the Budget 2009 last Friday and the newly-launched D-Max Hi-DEF luxury variant would strengthen its position and image.

With the continuing trend, Kondo expects sales of the D-Max to almost double last year's performance with over 5,000 units expected to be sold.

"With the healthy demand for the D-Max, we had to increase our initial projections of 4,000 units for 2008."

He said diesel engined vehicles are generally more fuel efficient and environmentally-friendly than petrol-engined vehicles.

"As an industry leader producing highly fuel-efficient, durable and reliable products, Isuzu Malaysia welcomes the reduction of road tax of privately-owned diesel engined vehicles (effective from September this year)," Kondo told Business Times.

"This move will not only be beneficial to motorists, especially high-mileage drivers who depend on diesel vehicles to save on fuel costs, this will also be positive for the environment in the long run, due to the lower hydro-carbon emissions created by diesel engines," he added.

Following the fuel price increase in June this year, the company's July sales hit a monthly record high of 525 units. Buyers in Sabah and Sarawak continued to be the biggest consumers of the D-Max with 60 per cent of the units going to these states.

The strong demand has helped Isuzu Malaysia to maintain its second position on the sales charts, with a share of 18.5 per cent of the pick-up segment as of July this year.

The D-Max 2.5-litre variant remains the top seller for Isuzu with 45.5 per cent of total sales volume, followed by the 3.0-litre Super Commonrail 4x4 manual version, which contributes 30.4 per cent.

Isuzu Malaysia launched the D-Max Hi-DEF limited edition last Friday and expects it to stand apart from ordinary pick-up trucks and fit perfectly to the growing segment of owners who want the versatility of a rugged vehicle without having to look for the parts.

Only 200 units of the D-Max Hi-Def will be offered. It boasts of leather-wrapped seats and door trimmings featuring double satin stitching with embroidered D-Max logo on the front seats, a GPS satellite navigation system and a Bluetooth hands-free connection.

The pick-up also has a 7-inch touch screen multimedia unit to playback just about any format of encoding including MP3, MPEG4 and movies via CD, CDRs, VCD, DVD, DVD-R or via USB or auxiliary cable connections.

The impressive list of goodies adds about RM10,000 to the price of the D-Max and depending on whether you order it with a four-speed automatic transmission or five-speed manual transmission or 4x4 or 4x2 and whether you choose the D-Box or roll-bar, the Peninsular Malaysia price varies from RM95,006 to RM107,098, inclusive of insurance.

The warranty period is three years or 100,000km, whichever comes first.

"With the Hi-DEF, we are able to bridge the divide between the head and the heart. After all, customers will still enjoy the benefits of versatility, fuel efficiency, durability and reliability inherent in all Isuzu vehicles. Now, it just comes in a more striking package," said Kondo.