The Market of Cars
When it comes to cars, drives are spoilt for choice with the wide spectrum of brands available. From low end brand like Chery qq from China, Proton from Malaysia to mid range brands like Nissan, Toyota, Honda from Japan and the rapidly emerging Kia, Hyundai from Korea as well as the luxury European brands like Mercedes Benz, BMW, Volvo, Saab etc. the car salesman has his work cut out for him in convincing the well informed consumer on which brand they should buy.
Before the general public used to favor the Japanese brands like Toyota, Nissan, Honda because they were much more affordable than the European cars. In recent years however, there has been a shift towards the European brands instead. This is partly because of the Euro crisis which caused the currency of Europe has dropped from 2 EUR to 1.5 EUR therefore motorcars from Europe are much more affordable now as compared to the past. Moreover, in order to purchase and use a car on the road in Singapore, every driver must bid for their Certificate of Entitlements (COEs). The purpose of having Certificate of Entitlement (COE) is to restrict the number of car on the road so that LTA can manage better traffic condition. Car prices are directly affected by the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) price. This is because every new car can only be registered with one Certificate of Entitlement (COE). So, when there are more people wanted to buy new car and COE supply are low, the price go up and vice versa.