Mitsubishi Motors Thailand remains upbeat about its prospects for the pickup truck market this year despite falling sales in the first eight months.
According to president and chief executive Morikazu Chokki, the Japanese carmaker expects demand to recover strongly in the final quarter.
The company has further made minor changes to its Triton pickup to help stimulate demand in the fourth quarter.
The new Triton was launched yesterday.
"We will try to control 8% of the pickup truck market by the end of this year, up from 6.6% as of August," said Mr Chokki.
At present, Isuzu controls the largest percentage of market share -- 37.8% -- while Toyota has captured 35.2% and Ford 8.8%. Mitsubishi is currently in 4th place.
For the first eight months, the company reported pickup truck sales of 13,867 units, down by 16.2% year-on-year.
Overall, Thailand's pickup truck market excluding passenger pickup vehicles (PPVs) rose slightly by 0.4% for the period to 210,869 units.
Last year, Mitsubishi reported 25,261 pickup trucks sold, down 23.7%.
But for the first eight months, Mitsubishi's overall domestic sales still managed to increase 13.2% to 35,889 units, thanks to robust sales of PPVs and eco-cars.
Mr Chokki is confident Mitsubishi's market share in Thailand will climb up to 8% by year-end from 7.8% last year.
In a related development, Mitsubishi said its car exports fell by 2.8% from January to August to 211,098 units.
Mr Chokki said Mitsubishi's completely knocked-down (CKD) outbound shipments were relatively sluggish, particularly those bound for Brazil, Russia and China, blaming the bearish economic conditions in those markets.
On the other hand, exports of completely built-up (CBU) vehicles remained healthy.
Mitsubishi expects to ship 321,812 CBUs and CKD this year, up 1.3% from a year earlier.
"Mitsubishi's operation in Thailand remains the key production hub for the company, serving 150 countries worldwide," he said.
Mr Chokki added that the company plans to make 385,000 units from three plants in Chon Buri, up 5.4%.
At present, Toyota and Mitsubishi are the main vehicle exporters from Thailand.
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