COE prices up across all categories, Cat B up 8.6% to $114,002
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The rise in the Category B COE premium comes after two rounds of dips.
ST PHOTO: BRIAN TEO
- COE prices rose across all categories on March 4, with Category B seeing the highest 8.6% increase to $114,002 after two falls.
- Industry experts predict some buyers will hold back due to the Category B rise. Reduced PARF rebates also affect market interest.
- Dealers will aggressively clear stock through discounts, intensifying competition and potentially driving up future COE prices.
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SINGAPORE - The price of certificates of entitlement (COEs) across the board rose on March 4, with the Category B premium seeing the highest rise of 8.6 per cent to end at $114,002.
The premium for a Category A COE, meant for smaller and less powerful cars and electric vehicles (EVs), was $108,220, up 1.6 per cent from $106,501 in the previous exercise that closed on Feb 20.
The 8.6 per cent hike from $105,001 in the premium for a Category B COE, used to register larger and more powerful cars and EVs, comes after two consecutive exercises in which the price of this type of certificate fell.
In the Open category, otherwise known as Category E, the price of a certificate rose 1.8 per cent, from $112,890 to $114,890.
Certificates in this category can be used to register any vehicle type except motorcycles, but are usually used for bigger cars.
Being transferable, motor traders secure them to have the flexibility to register cars without having to wait for the next tender exercise.
The commercial vehicle COE premium (Category C) rose by 1.3 per cent, from $74,999 to $76,000. The COE price for motorcycles (Category D) was $8,602 – a 7.7 per cent hike from $7,989 previously.
The next COE tender exercise closes on March 18 at 4pm.
Mr Anthony Teo, managing director of BYD distributor Sime Motor, said that interest in Category B COE car models picked up after the previous tender, when the price of such certificates dipped below the Category A premium for the first time since 2020.
This narrowed the price gap between Category B COE cars and the less-powerful Category A COE models.
With the Category B price rising by $9,001 in the latest round, Mr Teo expects some buyers to hold back.
The cut in preferential additional registration fee (PARF) rebates – applicable to cars registered with COEs secured from the second tender of February – will continue to affect market appetites.
PARF is the residual value an owner gets if a car is deregistered by its 10th year.
The 45-percentage-point cut in PARF rebates applies uniformly, but the financial impact on internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle owners is higher than that on EV owners. This is because the absolute PARF value of EVs has always been much lower than that of ICE vehicles.
Mr Jason Lim, managing director of Eurokars Auto BMW, said that dealers and buyers will need more time to adjust.
Automotive industry consultant Say Kwee Neng said that dealers would be aggressively “flushing out” their existing stock of new EVs and ICE models, offering discounts and higher used-car valuations to drive sales. He expects competition among dealers to intensify over the next few months, driving up COE prices.
