SINGAPORE - Certificate of entitlement (COE) premiums ended higher in the car and motorcycle categories in the latest tender exercise on April 3.
The price of COEs for smaller, less powerful cars (Category A) ended at $89,000, 4.1 per cent higher than the $85,489 recorded in the previous exercise two weeks ago.
For larger, more powerful cars (Category B), the COE premium climbed 5.5 per cent to $101,334, from $96,011.
The price of Open category COEs (Category E) rose 5.4 per cent to end at $101,002, from $95,856.
Open category certificates can be used to register any vehicle type other than motorcycles but end up being used almost exclusively for larger, more powerful cars.
The COE premium for motorcycles (Category D) was $10,000, up 3.2 per cent from $9,689.
The COE price for commercial vehicles (Category C) was the only one to register a drop on April 3. At $67,501, it was 3.7 per cent lower than the $70,112 registered at the previous exercise.
Mr Anthony Teo, managing director of Vantage Automotive, which distributes Chinese electric vehicle (EV) brand BYD, Ford and Peugeot, believes the COE premium for larger cars breaching the $100,000 mark will have a cooling effect on buyers.
While the price is some way from the $150,001 record set in October 2023, it marks a return to a six-digit price after three tender exercises.
Ms Sabrina Sng, a managing director at multi-franchise group Wearnes Automotive, believes the latest results may have been caused partly by dealers who were vying for COEs to deliver cars that were sold during the Singapore Motorshow in January.
Many sales contracts give dealers up to three months to get the COEs to deliver cars. Since the second tender exercise in January, as many as half of the COE bids entered for smaller cars were unsuccessful at each tender exercise.
Ms Sng, who oversees insurance, EV brand Lotus and sports carmaker Polestar at Wearnes, said that those who failed to get COEs would return for subsequent rounds, adding to the overall demand for COEs.
Industry insiders said the likes of BMW, Toyota and BYD were among those in the race to get COEs to deliver cars. These orders are believed to be a mix of deals closed during the Motorshow and cars sold more recently.
Open category COEs are transferable and have a validity of three months. The latest premium is higher than the $94,006 to $95,856 range seen in the previous three exercises.
Mr Ng Choon Wee, commercial director at Komoco Motors, which distributes Hyundai cars, said that dealers who hold Open category COEs secured at lower prices and have ready stock of new cars to sell may offer more aggressive promotions at The Car Expo event on April 13 and 14 at the Singapore Expo.
Mr Ng expects those who hold such Open category COEs will be able to make a profit if they can resell them to dealers after the latest tender result.
There is one more tender exercise before a new three-month quota for COEs starts in May.
The details of how many COEs will be available for the period has not been announced.
But traders expect that, based on data on the age of the vehicle population, there will be increasingly more COEs available in 2024 as vehicle deregistrations are expected to be higher than in 2023.
Ms Sng from Wearnes cautioned that demand will rise in tandem with a bigger COE supply. As more cars are due to be scrapped, the owners of these cars will be looking for replacements, so it is not a given that COE premiums are bound to fall.
