Auto sales jumped to a 10.3 percent year-on-year increase for November

MANILA: The local automotive industry is slowly getting back on track after a slump in performance last year. According to a joint report released by the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc.

(CAMPI) and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) last Wednesday, December 11, 34,465 units of vehicles were sold last November. That’s a 10.3 percent volume increase compared to vehicle sales last year for the same month.

According to CAMPI and TMA’s findings, from January to November, there were 336,226 units sold, a mere 3.27 percent increase compared with the same period last year. CAMPI President Rommel R. Gutierrez believes “this is an indication of a continuous market demand for vehicles and a clear upward trend for the industry as it begins the fourth quarter of 2019.”

Last month, CAMPI and TMA reported a modest increase of 3.8 percent in October sales volume with 34,397 units sold as compared from 33,150 vehicle units sold in October 2018. So, the boost for November is a sharp spike and a welcome relief for the local auto industry.

Based on the report, the overall increase in vehicle sales volume was largely driven by the light commercial vehicle (LCV) category, particularly the sports utility vehicles (SUVs) segment, which made a double-digit increase of 11.8 percent. SUV sold 187,160 units compared to 167,467 vehicles purchased last year.

The SUV/ LCV segment accounts for the majority of the total commercial vehicle segment sales, 74.18 percent to be exact. This speaks volumes on the preference of Filipinos for buying bigger and more practical vehicles that can be used for utilitarian and commercial purposes.

According to CAMPI, the top five automotive players in the Philippines are:

• Toyota Motor Philippines Corp with 43.25 percent market share
• Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. with 17.07 percent market share
• Nissan Philippines Inc. with 12.15 market share
• Suzuki Philippines Inc. with 6.51 percent market share
• Ford Motor Co. Philippines Inc. with 5.97 percent market share

With the outstanding sales growth in November, Gutierrez remains optimistic for December stating, “we are continuously working double time to achieve the industry’s overall sales target of 410,000 units, which we believe remains achievable.”

The Philippine automotive industry is still recovering from last year’s sharp decline due to the implementation of higher excise taxes which was exacerbated by high inflation rate. Last year, sales volume dropped by an astonishing 16 percent, the worst full-year sales performance since the financial crisis in 1998.

Hopefully, the performance of the auto industry for this year is not just a fluke as a looming storm may again be on the horizon. The Philippine auto industry would have to contend yet again with two impending safeguarding measures that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is currently considering—one is the measure against imported vehicles to protect the local auto manufacturing industry and the other is adding tariffs on imported Thailand-made vehicles as a retaliation in a long-standing trade dispute.

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