Thailand Motorcycles Market is gaining momentum. In 2023, sales have been 1.87 million (+4.4%) with the EV segment protagonist of a strong acceleration (+117.2%) in both L1 (+140.8%) and L3 (+98.0%) segments.
Thailand Motorcycles Industry Trend and Perspectives
The crisis is over and the thailandese 2-wheelers industry, the sixth largest worldwide is now in a fast growing line, fueled by renovated demand for individual mobility in a almost healthy economic environment.
The market is growing since 2021 and it seems that new trend is reverting the previous decade decline, when the 2-Wheeler industry was hit by declining demand, shifted on 4-Wheelers sector, thanks to the grown pro capita income and government focus and incentives for this sector.
Probably it is correlated with the “alert” created by Covid 19, but we can now assist at a vigorous demand for scooter and motorcycle and in 2023 the market posted the third increase in a row, achieving the third best results in the last decade.
Sales have been 1.87 million (+4.4%) with the EV segment protagonist of a strong acceleration (+117.2%) in both L1 (+140.8%) and L3 (+98.0%) segments.
Looking at top manufacturer’s performance, Honda is still on top with sales growth overtaking the industry (+6.4%) while the arcirival Yamaha has lost 3.9% and even the third, Piaggio, and the fourth, GPX, lost 8.5% and 10.0% respectively.
Behind new OEMs are emerging, with Lambretta (+125.4%), Deco (+208.7%), Royal Enfield (+27.6%) and AJ(+561.3%).
Global Production Hub
Thailand is a major motorcycle manufacturing base ranking in 5th place as regard to the production capacity (2 million), after China (23 million units), India (20 million), Indonesia (8 million) and Vietnam (3 million).
Thailand started the 1st motorcycle manufacturing in 1967 under the CKD system.
At the beginning decade of 1990, Thailand promoted the investment of four-stroke engine motorcycle instead of the two-stroke one to reduce emission problem and the production boosted reaching a capacity of 1.75 million annual units. The sales of motorcycles followed the development of the country representing the first device of personal mobility.
In the following years, while introducing Free Trade Agreements (FTA) which caused the cancellation of industrial protection measure, the industry started to export and to evolve in line with the global demand, learning new technologies and adopting state of the art rules for safety and emissions.
Nowadays, there are 7 motorcycle manufacturers in Thailand with total capacity of production at 3 million units per year. They are Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, BMW, Triumph and Ducati. Most of them are located in the Central and East regions because they are clusters of manufacturer as well as near to the seaport for export those CBUs.