Mitsubishi Motors increases Xpander production to meet overwhelming demand

MANILA: The Mitsubishi Xpander has been doing smashing sales since its debut last year. The superhit car is overbooked with reservations being made even before they reach the showroom floor. So, to meet this overwhelming demand for the crossover-MPV,
Mitsubishi has announced that they will be boosting their production.

The Xpander is built in Bekasi, Indonesia and the initial production target of the crossover-MPV set for this year alone was at 100,000 units. Now, the Japanese automaker plans to increase that figure by 20 percent and making the output to 120,000 for 2018. By currently doing plant upgrades, Mitsubishi Motors is aiming to increase and get a production capacity of 150,000 by 2019. Mitsubishi Motors Krama Yudha Indonesia (MMKI) has invested in additional assembly and welding facilities to churn out more Xpanders.

Mitsubishi Xpander was first launched in Indonesia last year, now has become their best-selling vehicle. It has got more than 80,000 orders from August 2017 to June 2018. Osamu Masuko, CEO of Mitsubishi Motors Corporation on this occasion said, “I am very pleased that customers in Indonesia and other ASEAN markets have enthusiastically accepted the Xpander. We will continue to devote our efforts to deliver as quickly as possible to more customers,”

Due to the supply shortage that was brought about by unforeseen staggering demand in its local production market in Indonesia, the launches in other ASEAN markets such as Malaysia and Thailand were delayed to Q3 of 2018. Locally, here in the Philippines, the Xpander launched back in March 2018.

Before the debut, Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corporation (MMPC) had opened their order to book the tall seven-seater, as well as they gave a dealer preview for interested car buyers. Up until now there are more than 2,000 firm orders for the Xpander as claimed by MMPC, and the first batch of the Mitsubishi Xpanders arrived in May 2018. The Xpander is available here in four different variants: GLX M/T, GLX Premium A/T, GLS and GLS Sport. The crossover-MPV is priced starting at Php 885,000 for the base variant and which goes up to Php 1.06 Million for the top end one.