Vehicle sales rose 22 percent in July from a year ago, despite the late deliveries of some models, two industry groups said Wednesday.
The Chamber of Automotive Manufacturing of the Philippines Inc. and the Truck Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. said in a joint report their members sold 29,967 vehicles in July, up from 24,569 units delivered in the same month last year.
Sales, however, dropped 9.2 percent from a record 32,993 units sold in June 2015, as all categories suffered slower sales month-on-month ranging from negative 6 to negative 12.5 percent.
Campi president Rommel Gutierrez said the month-on-month decline in sales was due to late deliveries of some models.
Sales in the first seven months increased 26.5 percent to 197,448 units from 156,034 units recorded a year ago.
“With appealing financial plans and continuous marketing efforts, we were able to outshine our record in July 2015. A chunk of last month’s sales records was due to arrival of the past month’s demands. We expect to keep up with the market for the second half of 2016,” said Gutierrez.
Data showed passenger car sales rose 9.9 percent to 11,230 units in July from 10,221 units in the same month in 2015 while commercial vehicle sales surged 30.6 percent year-on-year to 18,737 units from 14,348 units.
All other categories exceeded sales records on an annual basis.
Category 2 or light commercial vehicles posted the biggest increase of 36.2 percent to 11,982 units from 8,798 units in July last year.
Category 5 or heavy-duty trucks and buses grew 34.6 percent to 171 units from 127 units while Asian utility vehicles posted a 22.5-percent to 5,767 units from 4,709 units.
Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. remained the top performer with 43.63-percent market share in the first seven months, followed by Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. with 18 percent.
Ford Motor Company Philippines Inc. ranked third swith 9.88-percent market share.