Twice a month, the LTA publishes a short table of numbers, and Singapore’s car-buying community spends the next few hours arguing about what they mean. Once you know what each column is telling you, the table becomes much more readable. Here is a working guide.
The columns you will always see
Every COE bidding result, regardless of the source, includes these fields per category:
- Quota Premium (QP): the price every winner pays. Set by the lowest successful bid.
- Quota: how many COEs were available this round.
- Bids Received: how many bids came in.
- Bids Successful: how many bids actually won. Usually equals quota when there are enough bids.
The ratio of Bids Received to Quota is one read of how competitive a round was. A 1.5x oversubscription often signals upward pressure on the next round; a round with bids barely matching quota signals softness.
How premiums are usually quoted
You will almost always see QP shown like this:
- Cat A: $94,889 (▲ 2.1% MoM)
- Cat B: $128,400 (▼ 0.8% MoM)
The percentage is the change versus the previous bidding round, not versus a specific month. For COE, MoM in this context typically means “from the immediately preceding round,” not strict calendar month. Some publications also show YoY (year-on-year) which compares to the same round one year earlier; useful for spotting longer trends.
What MoM, YoY, and the arrows mean
An up arrow means the premium climbed since last round. A down arrow means it slipped. The size of the move matters more than the direction:
- Under 1 percent: noise. Within normal round-to-round variance.
- 1 to 3 percent: a real shift, but not unusual.
- 3 to 6 percent: notable. Worth understanding what changed.
- Above 6 percent: unusual. Often correlates with a specific event (quota change, scheme launch, holiday surge).
YoY is useful because it controls for round-to-round noise. A category that is up 3 percent MoM but down 12 percent YoY is in a longer-term cooldown.
What PQP is and why it matters
PQP is the Prevailing Quota Premium. It is the rolling 3-month average of QP for each category, recalculated monthly. PQP is the figure used when you renew an expiring COE for another 5 or 10 years.
One read of PQP: it smooths out individual round spikes, so renewing during a single bad round does not punish you the way buying new in that round would. Another read: it lags. If premiums spike for three straight rounds, PQP catches up by the third month.
If you are within a year of your COE expiring, watching PQP each month is more useful than watching QP each round.
Bids Received divided by Quota
This ratio is not always published, but most aggregator sites compute it. It is a quick way to read demand pressure:
- Below 1.0x: undersubscribed. Rare but signals demand softness.
- 1.0x to 1.3x: typical range.
- 1.3x to 1.7x: elevated demand. Premiums likely to firm next round.
- Above 1.7x: aggressive bidding. Premiums often climb.
This ratio is one signal among many; we would not over-rely on it for predicting next round.
Reading category cross-talk
Cat A and Cat B usually move together but at different magnitudes. When Cat A surges and Cat B does not, the read is often that mass-market demand is hot relative to luxury. When Cat E moves with Cat B, the read is often that buyers are using Cat E as an overflow for unsuccessful Cat B bids.
Cat C (commercial) often moves on its own cycle, driven by goods vehicle deregistration and the construction sector.
Cat D (motorcycles) is structurally different and rarely tells you much about car prices.
What is hard to see in the numbers
Headlines often miss things the numbers themselves do not show. Quota changes between quarters, scheme tweaks (EV incentives, ARF changes), and budget announcements all alter the demand curve in ways that may not show up immediately. When commentary says “premiums fell because of X,” that is a hypothesis, not a finding. Multiple drivers can be at play in the same round.
Where to track results
The original source is the LTA’s DataMall feed. Our COE Results hub updates within hours of each release, with the smart 12-month chart and per-category breakdown. For history, see the 5-year COE archive.
If you are nearing your COE expiry, our renewal versus scrap guide walks through the decision. If you are not sure which category your next car would fall under, see Cat A vs Cat B.