VW’s looking at Vietnam to establish stronghold in ASEAN

Having done that, they are also making their way further into Asia where they are now trying to penetrate Vietnam, which is known as the ‘New China’ as referred to by some in the industry in Germany. According to sources, the VW Amarok could be one of the models suited for the markets in these regions because their more expensive models might not be quite the right ones with issues like affordability to be considered.

At the moment, the leading brand in ASEAN is Toyota which holds 33% of market share in this region while VW is only having about 0.2% or slight more. Harold Sewitz a German management consultant in the automotive industry of Asia-Pacific said that VW would obviously be trying to enter ASEAN through its low-cost models which underline the reasons why they were keen to tie up with DRB-HICOM recently. VW is doing very well in China and if they are to become a brand to compete in the Asean market then they seriously have to up the ante and look into other markets in the region as well.

VW is looking towards Vietnam as a potential production site in terms of the access to the market in ASEAN but also in areas like labour and production costs which are known to be very low. Speculations are rift that they are probably considering producing the Amarok here to kick-start its competition with Toyota which is currently being rolled out through its manufacturing plant in South America. Some are also speculating that VW is looking at producing 200,000 units for the long term.