- Taiwan's automobile sales volume (PC+UV) increased 12 percent year-on-year to 424,000 units in 2014, surpassing the 400,000-unit level for the first time in nine years. New product launches stimulated consumer sentiment, resulting in the highest volume since 2005. Driven by luxury brands, imported automobile volume went up 21.9 percent to 140,000 units, pushing up imported product ratio from 30.4 percent to 33.1 percent.

- By type, passenger vehicles increased 12 percent to 382 000 units and commercial vehicles rose 11.6 percent to 42,000 units.

- By brand, top shareholder Toyota/Lexus went up 9.5 percent to 139,000 units. Apart from the Corolla Altis, the fully-remodeled Yaris (launched in September 2014) and Vios  (April 2014) also boosted sales. Next in line was Nissan/lnfiniti with 48,000 units, up 8.5 percent. Declining sales of the  Tiida  was  covered  by  the  Sentra which was released in October 2013. Third-placed Mitsubishi fell 2 percent to 27,000 units. Since no new models have been launched since 2011, the automaker's share declined 4 pp (percentage points) in the past five years to 6.5 percent. The release of the fully-remodeled Outlander in December 2014 is expected to revive share. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz and Luxgen realised remarkable results. Looking at Mercedes-Benz, brisk sales of the new S Class (October 2013) increased overall volume by 16.7 percent to 21,000 units.  Luxgen increased 2.3 percent fold to 17,000 units driven up by the U6 SUV (October 2013), expanding overall share  by  2pp  to  3.9  percent. Strong offensive by German and local automakers shrank Japanese share by 2.7pp to 65.9 percent in 2014.

- In 2015, GDP growth is expected to be on par with that of 2014. It is expecting slight market expansion in 2015 to the 430,000-unit range.

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