Vehicle sales drop 14% in May

Vehicle sales in the country continued to decline in May, with sales decreasing by 13.7 percent this year to 30,620 units sold from the 35,469 units sold during the same month last year. (Photo by Jeff Kalikstein/Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0)

MANILA — Vehicle sales in the country continued to decline in May, with sales decreasing by 13.7 percent this year to 30,620 units sold from the 35,469 units sold during the same month last year.

The Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc. (CAMPI) and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) reported Thursday that the sales of passenger car and commercial vehicle segments both dropped last month.

Sales of passenger cars in May decelerated by 19.6 percent to 9,401 units from May 2017’s sales of 11,690 units.

Passenger cars accounted for 31 percent of the CAMPI’s and TMA’s total sales in the previous month.

Likewise, the sales of commercial vehicles slumped by 10.8 percent to 21,219 units in May this year from 23,779 units in the same month last year.

Meanwhile, the sales of CAMPI and TMA further slowed down to 10.3 percent from January to May 2018 from a 9.3-percent decrement in the first four months of the year.

The combined five-month sales of the vehicle assemblers stood at 142,240 units this year from its 158,533 unit sales in the same period in 2017.

Earlier, CAMPI President Rommel Gutierrez noted that the decline in vehicle sales this year was anticipated, given the impact of higher excise tax on automotive vehicles imposed under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law, which was implemented at the start of the year.