Median Open Market Value of Category A cars dips

Saturday, 7 March 2015

THE STRAITS TIMES
SINGAPORE

Median Open Market Value of Category A cars dips

Published on Mar 7, 2015 1:21 AM


Potential buyers at a Nissan showroom in Ubi Road. The proportion of luxury cars in Category A has shrunk, but industry watchers say this could be partly because Japanese brands such as Toyota and Nissan are launching more models in the category. -- ST FILE PHOTO

THE median Open Market Value (OMV) of cars registered in Category A, or the small car category, has decreased a year after the re-categorisation of the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) scheme.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) in a statement yesterday said that there is now a greater proportion of cars with lower OMV in this cate-gory. Since the reclassification, the me-dian OMV of Category A cars has remained consistently below $20,000, compared to $26,147 before the change.

The percentage of cars with OMV at or below $20,000 has jumped from 26 per cent to 70 per cent.

The COE reclassification was implemented to ensure that Category A continued to cater to mass-market buyers and to stem the increasing proportion of higher-end cars appearing in that category.

Before the reclassification, Category A cars only had to have an engine capacity of less than 1,600cc to qualify.

But this led to complaints that some bigger luxury cars met that criterion and bidders of those cars were pushing up COE premiums in that category.

Since February last year, cars had to be less than 130bhp in horsepower in addition to being 1,600cc and below.

Industry watchers however noted that even though their proportion has shrunk, luxury cars still have a presence there and the decrease in proportion could be due to Japanese brands such as Toyota and Nissan becoming more aggressive and launching more models in that category.

"There are still luxury cars in that category - they are just the basic models that fit the horsepower and engine capacity requirements," said Singapore Vehicle Traders Association secretary Raymond Tang.

LESTER HIO