Ford sales surge on pickup’s popularity

Fri, 5 February 2016 ppp

Ananth Baliga

Ford cars for sale in a Phnom Penh showroom in 2013. Vireak Mai

Ford reported a 41 per cent increase in car sales in Cambodia last year, putting the Kingdom’s market among the fastest growing in the Southeast Asia region for the American automotive giant.

Regional sales figures, reported in a release yesterday, show that Ford’s Ranger pickup led the charge in Cambodia, accounting for 1,135 vehicles of the total of 1,266 Ford cars sold.

“Our strategy is to build the Ford brand standing out from others,” said Ngorn Saing, CEO at RMA Cambodia, the brand’s official distributor in Cambodia.

“The quality of our product is the top, and at the same time we offer excellent service to customers,” he added.

Saing added that while pickups were Ford’s biggest seller here, Cambodians were increasingly buying SUVs and cars.

“We have seen an increasing number of sales in SUV and sedans as well, especially Ford Explorer and Everest,” he said.

According to Ford, sales across Southeast Asia were more than 103,000 units last year, with, again, the Ranger accounting for more than half these sales. Cambodia, along with Vietnam and the Philippines, were the US automaker’s top performing markets in the region.

The double-digit growth in these markets contrasted with the company’s more sober 3 per cent growth for the region as a whole.

Cambodia imported more than 55,000 new and used cars last year, 10 per cent more than in 2014, according to the Cambodia Automotive Industry Federation. The industry body expects similar growth in the coming year.