On this year’s General Election (election) season did not hurt vehicle sales in Indonesia.
Kukuh Kumara, General Secretary of the Association of Indonesian Automotive Industries (Gaikindo) said that he was optimistic that vehicle sales this election season would run normally.
“So far it hasn’t had much of an impact, what actually has a significant impact is the economic problem. “This is based on our data,” said Kukuh in Jakarta some time ago.
Kukuh said that sales of motorized vehicles in Indonesia had plummeted in 1998 due to the economic crisis. In that year, vehicle sales were 58 thousand units, down significantly compared to 1997 which was at 387 thousand units.
A decline in vehicle sales also occurred in 2009. This was because elections were held in the same year.
Although not as severe as in 1998, the decline in sales in 2009 was still quite severe. The decline reached around 118 thousand units.
In 2008, sales reached 604 thousand units. Then in 2009, there were 486 thousand units recorded. After that, sales improved again.
Since 2010, sales of motorized vehicles in Indonesia have continued to increase until the Energy Efficient and Affordable Four-Wheeled Motorized Vehicle (KBH2)/Low Cost Green Car (LCGC) program was launched in 2013.
In that year, sales reached 1.220 million units. However, sales again experienced a rather significant decline in 2015 when the global economic crisis occurred.
In 2014, sales were recorded at 1.2 million units, whereas in 2015 it was only 1.01 million units.
The decline in motor vehicle sales in Indonesia occurred again during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sales were recorded at 1.032 million units in 2019 while in the following year it almost doubled to 532 thousand units. Sales slowly improved after that until they reached 1 million units again in 2023 as before the pandemic.
