Home to some of the worst traffic jams in the world, the major cities of Southeast Asia would seem to reflect a booming demand for autos. So too would the prominence of the car as a status symbol in Asean, where the lack of four wheels generally means riding a motorbike or packing into a crowded bus. Yet even as rising earnings put meaningful disposable income into the pockets of many regional consumers for the first time, the short-term outlook for auto sales looks anything but smooth — although the long-term trajectory is clearly upward.

In the first two months of 2015, auto sales for the Asean 5 — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam — have fallen by 6.2 per cent year on year, or over 31,000 cars. The two largest markets, Indonesia (-6.2 per cent) and Thailand (-11.8 per cent) have severely contracted, and Malaysia (0 per cent) has also stalled.

Strong growth in the still-nascent markets of the Philippines (21 per cent) and Vietnam (73 per cent) does little to offset the overall weakness because these countries account for a small fraction of the market.