Vehicles sales up 9.5% in Sept. ‘17

Toyota, Nissan and Honda logos (Photo courtesy of Automotive News)

MANILA— Sales of automotive vehicles in the country reached 34,445 units year-on-year in September this year, up 9.5 percent from 31,451 units in September 2016, the joint report of Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc. (CAMPI) and Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) showed Monday.

Compared to August sales, industry sales declined by 2.4 percent from 35,309 units sold in August.

“September sales result decreased compared to August sales result because of decrease in sales of major distributors. Despite the decline in September sales, the outlook for succeeding months remains strong, driven by the good sales performance of key models,” CAMPI President Rommel Gutierrez said.

The single-digit growth in September was pulled down by decrement in passenger car sales, which slid by 13.2 percent to 10,516 units this year from 12,110 units in September last year.

On the other hand, sales of commercial vehicles remained robust growing by 23.7 percent to 23,929 units in September 2017 from 19,341 units in the same period in 2016.
Under commercial vehicle segment, Asian utility vehicle (AUV) sales were flat at 0.5 percent growth, selling 5,981 units in the previous month compared to 5,954 units this sub-segment sold in  September last year.

Light commercial vehicle sales were upbeat last month with 32.6 percent increase, reaching 16,137 units from 12,174 units in September 2016.

Light trucks sales grew 44.3 percent year-on-year to 1,088 units; trucks and buses category four sales jumped 59.1 percent to 525 units; and trucks and buses category five increased 53.5 percent to 198 units.

For the first nine months of the year, CAMPI and TMA sales improved by 15.9 percent to 302,869 units from 261,370 units in the same period in 2016.

Sales of passenger cars went up by 4.8 percent to 101,655 units, while commercial vehicle sales increased by 22.4 percent to 201,214 units year-to-date.

“We maintain our optimism in achieving the year-end target with competitive promotional support and marketing activities to further push vehicle sales,” Gutierrez noted.

Total sales for January to September period is 67 percent of the industry’s initial target sales for this year of 450,000 units.