Honda committed to Australia

Honda is committed to remaining in Australia long-term, the company’s new local director Carolyn McMahon told Australian media today.

McMahon, a 28-year veteran of the company, addressed media at Honda Australia’s new Moonee Ponds headquarters in north-west Melbourne, where the company has unified its motor vehicle, motorcycle, power equipment and marine divisions under the one roof for the first time in 30 years.

Honda’s move to a fixed-price ‘agency’ business model in July 2021, in addition to a substantial fall in sales in recent years, led to speculation that the company was preparing to exit Australia, but McMahon directly addressed those rumours.

“When we were getting into agency there was lots of talk about whether or not we were going to be here [or] leaving the market, but that was a strategic move for us to be here for the next 50 years and I hope that today, in these new digs, it demonstrates that we’re not going anywhere, we’re here to stay,” said McMahon.

Honda’s local sales have dropped dramatically from a high of 51,525 in 2018 to 14,215 in 2022, driven by the deletion of the Jazz, City and Odyssey models and rationalisation of the new Civic and HR-V models to a pair of highly-priced, high-spec variants.

Honda’s volume-seller continues to be the aging CR-V, which is scheduled to be replaced later in 2023, accounting for 57 per cent of its 2022 sales and 77 per cent of its 2023 sales (2331 as of February).

Nevertheless, McMahon is adamant the company is happy with its current sales performance, that demand is as expected and that total sales are more a reflection of its supply limitations.

“Demand is where we thought it would be. We went into this model [expecting sales of] 20,000 units, that’s where demand is, there’s just the volume challenges that everyone is grappling with at the moment.”

Honda’s sales will be bolstered both by extraordinary demand for the new Civic Type R, which currently has a two-year wait list, and the arrival of the ZR-V mid-size SUV, that will slot between the HR-V and new CR-V.

McMahon also points to the brand’s asset investment as proof it’s here for the long haul. In addition to the unification of the business in newly refurbed offices, Honda is constructing a 22,000 square-metre central parts distribution centre for all its businesses, due to open in August, that McMahon describes as “state of the art”.

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