In early 2015, General Motors (GM) pulled out of Indonesia after operating there since 1938. At the time, its market share in Indonesia stood at below 1%.
Then weeks later, GM started scaling down its operations in Thailand where it had just a 3% market share.
At the time, the Chevrolet Spin (compact MPV) and Sonic (compact car) were seeing declining sales despite the Thai government’s push to encourage compact vehicles sales using the “Eco Car 2” programme.
Only the Chevrolet pickup truck seemed to continue to have a following.
Now in November 2018, after four business “marriages” with Malaysian companies, GM is retracting again from Malaysia.
Its fourth marriage, with the Naza Group just ended and the GM public relations department in Thailand has issued a statement saying that a new fifth business marriage is being planned.
We are sure this marriage will not take place in the near future unless GM itself comes to Malaysia and opens for business with new and interesting products.
Looking at GM’s issues with Indonesia and Thailand, it is not surprising that the Malaysian retreat has come.
We believe that GM has not looked seriously enough into buyer behaviour and the needs of the maturing Asean motoring consumer and instead brought in products that do not compete head to head with Korean and Japanese vehicles sold in Asean.
(The last Cruze and Malibu cars have been replaced with newer models globally but were never introduced in Malaysia) and the ageing Captiva SUV has no revised model.
Looking at how Mazda and Subaru have moved fast forward in Asean to compete with long established Toyota, Nissan and Honda, its is clear that the product planners in both Mazda and Subaru have understood the maturing needs of the region’s car buyers and developed new “sexy” products with latest cabin and drivetrain technology to stay ahead and even at times be ahead of the established competitors.
It is time for General Motors to understand that Asean is a mature car market and buyers will not accept old technology under fresh paint and leather.
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