Vehicle sales grew 26.9 percent in the first nine months to 314,843 units from 248,154 in the same period last year, putting the industry on track to achieving record performance this year, two industry groups said over the weekend.
The Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (CAMPI) and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) said in a joint report the promotional campaigns and new model launches sustained the growth of the industry.
“We recorded the highest monthly sales performance in September, and we hope that positive consumer outlook will be sustained in Q4,” said CAMPI president Rommel Gutierrez.
Sales increased 9.5 percent in September to 38,652 from 35,282 units sold a year earlier. The figure was also up 5.2 percent from 36,714 in August.
Passenger car sales from January to September went up 33.2 percent to 80,009 from 60,058 units a year ago, while commercial vehicle sales went up by 24.8 percent to 234,834 from 188,096.
September sales of passenger cars grew 19.8 percent to 9,558 units, while commercial vehicle deliveries went up 6.5 percent to 29,070.
CAMPI earlier revised its 2023 sales forecast to 423,000 units, representing a 20=percent growth from the 2022 actual sales performance.
“The auto market remained resilient since 2021, and current trend indicates that we will breach the highest pre-pandemic sales performance and achieve full industry recovery in 2023,” Gutierrez said.
Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. continued to dominate the automotive market with 45.81-percent share in the nine-month period, followed by Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. with 18.44 percent, Ford Motor Company Philippines Inc. with 7.33 percent, Nissan Philippines Inc. with 6.36 percent and Suzuki Philippines, Inc. with 4.28 percent.