Borneo Motors in drive to keep Toyota as top car seller in S'pore

Distributor to woo private buyers with more models, better sales and aftersales functions

- Lee Nian Tjoe

Around half of the 3,857 Toyota passenger cars sold by Borneo Motors in 2023 in Singapore were bought by businesses, but the authorised distributor of Japan's No. 1 car brand will be pushing to get more private buyers to tip the balance, according to its head honcho.

Borneo Motors' Toyota was the Republic's top seller in 2023, taking the No. 1 spot occupied by Mercedes-Benz in 2022. Borneo Motors' figure includes Lexus, which is Toyota's luxury brand.

Mr Ng Khee Siong, the managing director of Inchcape Singapore, Borneo Motors' parent company, wants the dealer to stay in the No. 1 spot, through more Toyota and Lexus models and boosting the sales and aftersales functions to win over customers.

This is while parallel importers have a significant chunk of the Toyota pie, accounting for 46.8 per cent of total Toyota car registrations in 2023. This was higher than the 21.2 per cent market share that parallel imports have of the overall car market.

Borneo Motors, representing Toyota and Lexus, is part of Inchcape Singapore, which also owns Champion Motors, the distributor for Suzuki cars. Combined, the dealerships registered 4,115 cars in 2023, making Inchcape Singapore the second-biggest motor dealer group after Jardine Cycle & Carriage with 5,357 registrations from six brands.

Besides Singapore, Inchcape operates in over 40 countries with more than 40 automotive brands.

Industry observers said that private car buyers have been keeping away as certificate of entitlement (COE) premiums surged in 2022 and 2023, with the low supply of COES.

New private car registrations were down by 5 per cent to 18,204 in 2023 from 19,168 in 2022, but rental car registrations in 2023 were 4.2 per cent higher than 2022 with 9,163 units from 8,790.

Rental cars tend to be bought by companies. They can be hired out to individuals to use privately or to provide ride-hail services.