Ayala’s mobility solutions group ACMobility and Honda Cars Philippines, Inc. (HCPI) jointly announce the transition of their 35-year dealer operations, effective January 1, 2026.
ACMobility, through Iconic Dealership, Inc. (IDI), will begin turning over management and dealership operations of Honda dealerships to new dealer principals towards the end of this year. Honda Cars Philippines says customers will experience a seamless transition with these new dealer principals who are equally committed to delivering outstanding customer experience.
This transition involves all Honda branches currently under the management of IDI, namely Honda Cars Makati, Honda Cars Pasig, Honda Cars Shaw, Honda Cars Bacoor, Honda Cars Cebu, Honda Cars Mandaue, Honda Cars Iloilo, Honda Cars Negros, and Honda Cars Cagayan de Oro.
IDI will continue to operate all dealerships until December 31, 2025. Following this, full sales and after-sales services will remain available at all locations under new operators, and customers will continue to enjoy uninterrupted services at their existing locations. Should there be any changes, HCPI will be announcing through official channels.
“We thank Ayala for their invaluable contribution over the past 35 years, which played a key role in establishing Honda as a trusted brand in the Philippines. As we work closely with our new dealer principals, we are fully committed to ensuring a seamless transition while upholding Honda’s legacy of excellence, innovation, and outstanding customer service. HCPI will continue to provide the best products and services including an expanding range of electrified vehicles and solutions. We remain firmly committed to Honda’s long-term goals of zero collision and carbon neutrality, advancing safety for everyone and a cleaner environment in the Philippines,” said Rie Miyake, HCPI President.
Honda’s dedicated teams remain ready to assist with sales, maintenance, repairs, warranty support, and vehicle care. To ensure a smooth transition, the dealerships will directly contact customers with active reservations to guarantee car delivery without disruption. All scheduled service appointments and repairs will also proceed as planned.
The partnership dates to 1990 with the opening of Honda Cars Makati, the very first Honda Cars dealership in the Philippines. From this pioneering beginning, the network grew steadily across Metro Manila and into key cities nationwide, ultimately becoming the largest Honda dealer group in the Philippines. Over the past 35 years, ACMobility-operated Honda dealerships have sold over 220,000 vehicles as of August 2025.
“We are grateful, and indeed proud, to have been part of Honda’s journey in the Philippines for the past three and a half decades,” said Jaime Alfonso Zobel de Ayala, Chief Executive Officer of ACMobility. “This transition reflects our ongoing effort to optimize our portfolio and focus on new growth areas. Among these are our initiatives in advancing sustainable mobility and electrification, where we continue to build solutions that benefit communities, businesses, and the environment.”
So does this mean they are fully cutting off Honda from the auto portfolio? If so, quite sudden.
ReplyDeleteAyala Group is still a shareholder at Honda Cars Philippines.
DeleteYes, AC Industrial still owns 12.9% of HCPI. The rest is owned by RCBC 12.9% and Honda Motor 74.2%. What happened is that AC Mobility exited the Honda dealership business.
DeleteWhat's next, Isuzu?
ReplyDeleteNot really, Isuzu is expanding. A new dealership will open in Mandaluyong this quarter.
DeleteAyala Group won't drop their Isuzu dealerships that easily
Deletethere is a possibility though, since they're also just a partner dealer, not exactly the authorized distributor. If they're emphasizing electrification as one of the reasons for divesting their Honda dealerships, Isuzu might have it worse
DeleteNice, baka magmura na or lalaki na discounts
ReplyDeleteNope! Baka maliit yung makakuha na dealer di kasinlaki ng ACMobility baka mas lalong magmahal kasi kelangan mag cope up sa expenses ni dealer, alam nman natin medyo may kamahalan si Honda kaya kunti lang yung sales compare mo sa toyota etc., and yung Honda natin made in Thailand na wala na tayong Honda assembly plant.
Deletetrue, Honda's has always been just a bit more expensive than its mainstream peers, even in other countries
DeleteGateway,LICA and ANC are the ones gonna take over the operations of those Honda Cars dealerships.
ReplyDeleteHonda vehicles are hard to sell that's why Ayala Group gave up on selling and operating Honda Car dealerships
Wala nang LICA. Gateway Group, ANC, possibly Autohub Group, Yuchengco Group and even Autospeedygo might be the ones to takeover ACMobility's Honda dealerships
DeleteYuchengco already gave up some of their Honda dealerships before so I doubt they'll even want to take over some.
DeleteGateway and ANC owned a lot of Honda Cars dealerships..Autohub isn't interested of opening nor operating a Honda Cars dealership.
DeleteMas mabenta na kasi ang BYD kaya dina drop na nila ang mga non-performing assets so to speak. Sana mas dumami ang dealerships ng Honda sa bansa. Marami pang provinces na walang Honda dealerships.
ReplyDeleteHonda vehicles are very hard to sell now
DeleteBRV and City are the vehicles keeping Honda Cars still alive in the Philippines.
Will Ayala also divest their stake in HCPI?
ReplyDeleteThey won't do that
Deletewell this might just be the biggest twist this 2025 :O
ReplyDeleteHoping this would mean newer products down the line. We're missing out on the new Amaze, the WR-V, and the Elevate.
ReplyDeleteAyala will be focusing on chinese BYD that's for sure, yan kasi yung mabenta ngayon at si ACMobility yung dealer. Sana hindi tuluyang mag exit si Honda sa pinas like VW.
ReplyDeletethey won't naman siguro, Ayala might have stake but they don't own Honda Cars Philippines. They may not be top five but they're always in the top ten. That alone is proof that people still buy their cars, they just need to be more competitive
DeleteI think Ayala is dropping Honda coz they will venture into opening Spinneys in metro manila. A high end grocery supermarket chain very well know in the Gulf region.
ReplyDeleteI don't think those two things are connected. Hindi nmn ganun ka stretched yung resources nila that they need to make sacrifices like that.
DeleteAyala is a diversified conglomerate with subsidiaries across multiple industries. They can very well launch a new business while still running other businesses on top. Also, good luck to Spinneys. Ayala doesn’t have a good track record with retail. They did Family Mart dirty in our market.
DeleteRustan's Group is a more logical fit for premium retail. Ayala is more of a landlord than an operator... which circles us back to the current divestments.
DeleteNot sure about that, Rustan's was Ayala's partner with Family Mart. Also, Rustan's has already exited the supermarket business. All of its supermarkets, including Shopwise, was sold to Robinsons. SM would be the perfect fit as it still doesn't have an upmarket supermarket chain under its portfolio.
DeleteChinese cars is the future. Lets all embrace and deal with it.
ReplyDeleteFuture head aches
DeleteHonda vehicles are expensive to maintain especially the Hybrid ones 🤣
DeleteBYD is safe since like Huawei its fully supported by the CCP. But expect dozens of other Chinese EV brands to go bankrupt / consolidate, leaving customers with unuseable products when you can't open anything without connecting to the non-existent server. There is surplus production though so for the next few years it will be very tempting to grab a cheap EV even for just 2-3 years use. What I find infuriating is I've always wanted turbocharged, dual-clutch, hybrid cars from the legacy brands (European and Japanese) but they keep on going "Nah, PH doesn't have the infrastructure." Or "Nah, Philippines fuel quality sucks." but then here come the Chinese brands and dump all that tech without even roadtesting nor tropicalizing their units nor even proving their reliability based on their last attempt in the 2000s.
DeleteI barely see any New Honda SUV with new plate,Yun BYD ang Dami.
ReplyDeleteHonda has hybrids in their lineup but the pricing is unrealistic for the competition. They are way too expensive. You barely see any honda civic or CRV or HRV hybrids on the road.. sad day for honda cars phils.
ReplyDeleteThere's still a fair amount of CR-V Hybrids running around...I haven't seen much HR-V and Civic Hybrids though.
DeleteThey are betting more on BYD thats why coz for sure it is the future of cars here in ph and it is a big trend in the market because of its technology that japanese cars dont offer plus much more cheaper than of Tesla...
ReplyDeleteIts simple math really. AC is mainly banking on BYD. AC gets aging BYD models from BYD China at much lower costs (think up to 30% off the SRP in China) and sell here at almost 100% margin while still undercutting both legacy and chinese brands. Insane. If not for Kia Sonet, (which is currently Kia's best seller, which is also sourced from China), we would've seen Ayala dropping Kia as well sooner rather than later. The writing is on the wall for Kia.
ReplyDeleteWhen they took over KIA, they laid out ambitious plans for climbing the sales charts and launching X number of models to cater to the market. Then they launched Stinger, Seltos, Soluto, Stonic, Carnival, EV6, Sorento, EV9 and Sonet - a lineup so full of holes, it puts your spaghetti colander to shame. Parent company Hyundai is faring better for the most part. Considering both are having to compete with Chinese upstarts, while having a range of models they can sell at their disposal, it puzzles me why KIA isn't doing as well as Hyundai.
DeleteYou got it right.... same modus operandi before with VW after dieselgate.
DeleteThey got KIA but did not get the right people to run it. Sakit ng Ayala. Yun mga marunong inaalis
DeleteHyundai Philippines mainly relies on the sales of Stargazer and Staria while Kia Philippines mainly relies on the sales of Sonet,Soluto and Carnival.
DeleteHyundai sells some old and bare units came from South Korea like the Elantra and Venue.
Mahilig mag overpriced and magbawas features ang AC. Tang DM-i kulang sa features pero ang mahal ng presyo. Wala bibili nyang tang.
Delete'Mahilig mag overprice' isn't the Tang DM-i the first car where people have said this? Paano naging pattern pag ganun? And that's rich given how the lower prices (of most, I guess) of their cars have prompted a lot of big discounts from legacy brands (so who is really overpriced then?).
DeleteAlso, wala control si AC sa design ng cars. Distributor lng sila. Ano bang klaseng comment yan? Lol
I find it interesting that Doug DeMuro (a big car YouTuber) had a podcast about a month ago talking about how Honda was 'so scared' to make impactful design decisions and then this happens here. I know their podcast was about the US market but the culture of the decision makers is probably the same.
ReplyDeleteMeron daw saying sa ACMOBILITY na Win with Integrity. Pero yun numbers ng BYD hindi naman totoo daw lahat??? Baka malaglag din yan sa future
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't take much effort to consider what Ayala would gain by lying like that, which is nothing.
DeleteFor people unaware, if a publicly traded company did something like that it's an easy lawsuit for shareholders.
There are people who, for whatever reason, are not comfortable with the concept of BYD actually being successful, but it's hard to believe statements like that when you can literally notice more and more of their cars on the road.
Sino ba leader ng Honda Ayala, bakit hindi na-ilaban? Diba yun Antonio Sara? Siya pa din ba o iba na? Sayang din kasi magandang brand ang Honda. 70% ng automotive hindi pa din naman electric
ReplyDeletePuro PowerPoint, charts, and numbers yung basehan/labanan nyan. Mukhang hindi flattering yung laman ng mga yun if ganito yung decision nila.
DeleteNews around all theory, no one experienced in the ground
DeleteYun daw Head daw ng Honda ang nakaupo. Baka kaya nag sara all.
DeleteQuestion,
ReplyDeleteSa Pinas lang ba mas mahal Ang Honda kaysa Toyota?
Nakita din siguro Ayala Yun mga future Honda Cars na kamukha ng Toyota kaya Lalo bleak insight nila sa brand.
Not surprised, the writing is on the wall for Jap legacy auto makers. Their sales have dropped massively in Thailand, which sets the trend in Asean. According to Electric Viking, Jap EV technology is 15 years behind the Chinese brands. Just look at their hybrids, tiny batteries, some are still using obsolete NiMH, the pure EV mode is a gimmick since they can't run more than 1km without the gasoline engine kicking in.
ReplyDelete