Vehicle sales in the Philippines grew 23.9 percent in the first 11 months to 390,654 units from a year ago, according to two industry groups.
The Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (CAMPI) and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) said in a joint report Tuesday the industry sustained its upward trend on strong market appetite as buyers searched for new and upgraded models.
“The automotive industry will definitely breach pre-pandemic sales in 2023,” said CAMPI president Rommel Gutierrez.
“We already achieved 92 percent of our 2023 forecast in November; we may even exceed our sales forecast of 423,000 units if sales performance in the last month is sustained,” he said.
The group said aggressive marketing activities and supply improvement across all brands drove the sales growth.
The passenger car segment posted a 29-percent growth to 99,665 units in the 11-month period from 77,283 a year earlier, while the commercial vehicle segment grew 22.23 percent to 290,989 from 238,054 units.
Month-on-month sales, however, dropped 1.2 percent in November to 37,683 from 38,138 units in October.
Data showed that on a year-on-year, November sales went up by 7.6 percent from 35,037 units delivered in the same month last year.
Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. dominated the automotive market with a 46.2-percent share of the total sales, followed by Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. with 18.4 percent, Ford Motor Company Philippines Inc. with 7.3 percent, Nissan Philippines Inc. with 6.3 percent and Suzuki Philippines Inc. with 4.3 percent.