BANGKOK – Thailand’s largest conglomerate, CP Group, and Beiqi Foton Motor of China, have unveiled a diversity of advertising cars developed in conjunction with the goal of entrenching the Thai automotive market.
Its joint venture, CP Foton, aims to sell 450 cars until the end of the year. Although costs remain secret, the company said new trucks and buses would be 10% to 15% more than its competitors with the Japanese logo.
The purpose is to succeed in the 3rd position of percentage market position in 3 to five years. Toyota Motor has the highest percentage of advertising cars sold in Thailand with 35%, followed by Isuzu Motors with 28%. For CP Foton to succeed on its target, you would want to exceed the 8% percentage of Ford Motor.
“CP knows the Thai market from the wisest to the bottom,” said CP Vice President Thanakorn Seriburi.
The partners also revealed on Tuesday’s press occasion their goal of building a meeting plant in Thailand in two or three years. The plant would export cars to the region.
“We’re going to make Thailand centrally Southeast Asia,” said Dai Hongkai, Foton’s managing director of Operations in Asia-Pacific.
Foton and CP signed an agreement to create a Thai joint venture at the Beijing Strip and Route Forum in April last year. The union now imports cars manufactured in China.
CP, short for Charoen Pokphand, operates food processing plants and also manages the 7-Eleven convenience store chain in Thailand. Thanakorn said the organization planned to use CAMIONS with the CP Foton logo in its distribution operations.
In 2012, CP formed a joint venture with Shanghai-based SAIC Motor, which began assembling cars for the British mg logo acquired through SAIC in 2014. MG had a market share of 2.6% in Thailand last year.
Beiqi Foton Motor is a unit of the BAIC Group.
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