The Vietnamese purchased nearly 2.2 million new mass motorbikes in 2022

31 Dec 2022

The end of year is a time to look back on a volatile year of the Vietnamese motorcycle market with new developments.

Like automobiles, the Vietnamese motorcycle market in 2022 has seen many fluctuations. Specifically, the disruption of the supply chain as well as the difficulty of input materials caused the production activities of many motorcycle manufacturers to be interrupted, and output decreased. This has directly affected supply and selling prices of many models on the market.

However, the presence of new models, especially electric motorcycles, along with the blooming trend of 160 cc scooters, has contributed to helping the motorcycle market regain its sales growth momentum from mid-2022 until now.

According to the Vietnam Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (VAMM), Vietnamese consumers have purchased approximately 2.2 million imported motorbikes, nearly equal to the number of motorbikes consumed in the whole of 2021 (2.492 million units). Thus, on average, Vietnam purchased more than 8,000 new motorbikes daily.

Rocketing prices of due to disruptions and supply chain shortages

Fluctuations of the economic situation, the aftershocks of Covid-19, and political conflicts in the world have caused the global supply chain to be disturbed. The production of motorcycles of many manufacturers decreased as there were not enough supply of semiconductor chips and components for production and assembly.

This has greatly affected the motorcycle market in Vietnam. Since then, it has put Yamaha, Honda, Piaggio, … in difficulties in input materials, leading to the consequences of insufficient supply and demand.

More specifically, in April to July 2022, many digital motorcycles and scooters from Yamaha and Honda were constantly low in stock. The selling prices of many motorcycles, especially Honda models at dealers, increased rapidly. The extend goes to tens of million VND different from the company’s proposed price.

With supply inconsistent with demand, Honda Vietnam once announced that the company is facing a decrease in the average production output of some locally produced scooter models.

A series of products such as the Honda Wave Alpha cub models to scooters such as Honda SH or Honda Vision fell into a situation of not having enough vehicles to supply dealers. There was a time when the Vision cost nearly tens of millions VND higher than original; the rolling price of this model was once pushed up to nearly 60 million.

Motorcycles from Thailand and Indonesia imported heavily in the Vietnamese market

In the context of a shortage of supply in the domestic motorcycle market, some private dealerships have brought many models of motorbikes from Thailand and Indonesia to Vietnam.

Specifically in the digital motorcycle segment, Thailand-made models such as GPX POPZ 110, Honda Wave 110i, Honda Wave 125i, or Honda CT125 ABS with the price of nearly hundreds of millions VND were brought to Vietnam in turn.

Motorcycles made in Indonesia with a series of models such as Honda Vario 160, Vario 125, Honda PCX 160… are also brought to Vietnam in very large numbers.

The emergence of electric motorcycles

Along with motorcycles using internal combustion engines, the electric motorcycle segment in 2022 in Vietnam also continued to grow. Vietnamese brands such as VinFast have enlisted to launch new electric motorcycle models such as Vento, Evo200…

Dat Bike also launched the Weaver++ model, which is an upgrade of the previous Weaver 200. In addition, many foreign electric motorcycle models such as Yadea also landed. And recently, Yamaha has also planned to bring back its compact electric model, the Neo’s.

The popularity of 160cc scooter segment begins

Despite the difficulties in production, motorcycle manufacturers in Vietnam still make efforts to launch many new models to the market. Honda Vietnam has just launched a series of new products such as Honda SH 160i, Honda Air Blade 160, and Honda Vario 160 that are assembled in Vietnam.