Philippines vehicle market down 10% in October
The Philippines market is coming back from the August low, but is still well under pre-pandemic levels.
New vehicle sales in the Philippines continued to decline in October 2021, by almost 10% to 22,581 units from 25,023 units a year earlier, according to member wholesale data released jointly by the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc (CAMPI) and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA).
Sales have bounced back from the August low, after the government began to ease social and business restrictions in September as the country began to recover from the latest wave of coronavirus infections. The vehicle market is struggling to return to pre-pandemic levels, however, despite third-quarter GDP growth slowing to just 7.1% year-on-year from 12.0% in the second quarter from extremely weak year-earlier levels during the first wave of the pandemic.
The associations’ data shows vehicle sales were still up by almost 24% 214,186 units in the first ten months of the year from 173,035 units in the same period last year, with, with passenger vehicle sales rebounding by 29% to 68,608 units and commercial vehicle sales up 21% at 145,578 units.
Toyota Motor Philippines accounted for 48% of total sales year-to-date, followed by Mitsubishi Motors with almost 14%, Ford 7.6%, Suzuki 7.5% and Nissan 7.1%.
The data do not include members of the Association of Vehicle Importers and Distributors (AVID), which reported a 26% increase in combined sales to 43,957 units in the first nine months of the year.