"Toyota Camry: Can It Beat the Ford F-150?"
on May 19th by Jim Henry is a reporter covering the automotive industry(Business Week)
According to Ford’s US sales analysis manager, the Ford F-150 and its ancestors have been the best-selling vehicles in the US for 26 years in a row, and the best-selling truck for 31 years in a row. It seemed that the Ford F-150 could never be knocked down. However, Camry is definitely rising model and Camry has been closing the gap.
The reason why Camry is doing well is that in the US market, gas prices, the housing meltdown, and changing consumer tastes have all combined to drag down sales of large pickups. The same
high gas prices have made fuel efficient cars more attractive, especially gasoline-electric hybrids like Toyota Camry Hybrid. So Ford also react against Toyota Camry by promoting Ford Focus which is small and has reached the top 10-selling car this year.My opinion
US big auto maker’s pickups have been cash cow but they can’t guarantee those pickups would stay in cash cow section. I expect the pickups to be in the dog section probably in 3 years. So I am going to point out some of geographical and econmical factors which have influences on sales of pickups.
Geographical and Economical Factor
Expensive oil price diminished the sales of pickups. Currently oil price is skyrocketing. According to the Bloomberg, NYMEX crude future is being traded with US $128.93 per barrel. This is already expensive. As everybody knows, expensive oil price discourage people to buy pickups. Not only this, another factor will accelerate the sales of compact car like Camry. Another factor is potential change of city structure owing to energy crisis. As energy cost go extreme, there will be great influx of people into the city because they want to save money for oil price which is consumed during commute. More people in city, smaller space people have. So there will be certain movements or government policies that discourage people to buy big and space consuming car like pickup and encouragement for compact car.
Political factor
These day, there are very positive movement about environment. Starting with "An Inconvenient Truth", the voice of environment is become strong. They criticized that current oil price is too cheap because it doesn't include external effect. So there are possibilities that oil price even go higher and it will ultimately affect the sales of pickups.Conclusion
From what I mentioned above, because of increasing oil price, we can assume that the sales of pickups will drastically fall down and the compact car which is oil-efficient will fill up the space of pickups. In the future, compact car will have majority of market share. Even among the compact car brand, the technologies to maximize and save energy will be key factors to dominate the auto market.
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기