This is Mitsubishi Motors' plan for the Philippines
What does Mitsubishi Motors have in store for us?
A lot is going on over at Mitsubishi right now. They laid down their business plans for the future, along with eight new models within a few years. It's exciting times for the Japanese automaker, but what's in it for the Philippines?
Mitsubishi Motors recognizes that the Philippines is one of its most important markets. We are among the top 10 countries that purchase Mitsubishi vehicles, and that's an achievement given that we're not the biggest country around. It also helps that they have an assembly line here to help their output.
One of their objectives for 2021 is to take advantage of local production. The automaker specifically mentioned the safeguard bond as one of the reasons to maximize the plant. The units that roll out of the Santa Rosa, Laguna facility are the Mirage and the L300. These two are also the company's best-sellers, and they are hoping that the bond exemption will boost sales of these models.
Of course, the cars won't sell themselves so MMPC will do more aggressive marketing to sway more customers to the Philippine-made models. They will also come up with more enticing promo offers for these two vehicles to increase demand. Increased demand means the plant builds more cars, which is the end goal of the company.
Also included in their business plan is the addition of more dealerships nationwide. Per the company, they have signed new dealers and they are hoping that the new showrooms will open soon. At the moment, MMPC has 49 dealerships in the country. While it's an impressive number, it seems that they want to get close to Toyota's total of 72 sales and service facilities. The more sales channels they have, the more reach they have in the country.
That's all well and good, but what about expanding the local plant? Unfortunately, there are no plans to add more models for Philippine production. That said, they will export the L300 to neighboring countries. There are even plans for Nissan to use the factory to assemble the Navara and Terra here. However, the current situation might have put that move on hold.
