TAIPEI: Toyota continued its run as the bestselling car brand in Taiwan for the 13th consecutive year in 2014, partly because of the popularity of its Corolla Altis and RAV4 models, according to market statistics released Monday.
The data from Hotai Motor Co., Taiwan’s largest automobile retailer and distributor of Toyota and Lexus cars, showed that 423,829 cars were sold in Taiwan last year, surpassing the 400,000-unit mark for the first time in nine years, thanks to a domestic economic recovery, improving consumer confidence and the launch of new car models.
Sales of Toyota cars in Taiwan totaled 139,241 units in 2014, giving the Japanese brand a 32.9 percent market share and the spot as the bestseller in the country for 13th straight year, the statistics showed.
Hotai said six of the top 10 bestselling car models in Taiwan last year were Toyota, led by the Toyota Corolla Altis with record sales of 44,753 units and the Toyota RAV4 with 16,714 units.
The only four non-Toyota cars in the top-10 rankings were the Nissan Sentra in fourth place (13,331 units), Nissan Big Tida in sixth place (12,868 units), Honda CR-V in the eighth spot (12,478 units) and Ford Focus in ninth place (12,395 units).Hotai said it remains optimistic about the outlook for Taiwan’s car market in 2015 based on strong replacement demand, stable economic growth and a continued decline in domestic oil prices.