PH car production expands by 23% in November

2nd highest growth in ASEAN

Motor vehicle production in the Philippines as of November 2017 grew a dramatic 23.1 percent, the second highest among ASEAN countries as growth by major producing countries was limited to single digit only.

Data from the ASEAN Automotive Federation showed that local car production in the Philippines reached 133,015 units as of November 2017 from only 108,090 units in the first eleven months of 2016.

Myanmar reported the highest production growth of 366.8 percent although at lower volume of 4,640 units in the January-November 2017 period from 994 units in the same period in 2016.

Comparatively, major car producers in ASEAN such as Thailand and Indonesia registered significantly slower production growth.

Thailand, known as the Detroit in ASEAN being the production hub for the region by most car companies grew a flat 1.3 percent to 1,831,616 units from 1,808,625 units although its total production volume was 13 times more than the Philippines.

Indonesia, ASEAN’s largest car market, was able to produce 1,129,850 units for the January-November 2017 period or 3.8 percent growth from 1,088,648 units produced in the same period in 2016.

Malaysia posted a negative growth of 6.7 percent to 463,993 units from 497,418 units in the same eleven-month period of 2016.

Vietnam suffered the steepest decline at 16.5 percent to 178,838 units from 214,277 units produced locally in 2017.

Overall, automotive production in these six ASEAN countries in the January-November period last year reached 3,741,952 units or a flat growth of 0.6 percent to 3,718,052 units in the same period in 2016.

In terms of sales, Myanmar reported the highest increase at 99.5 percent to 7,303 units sold from 3,716 units.

The Philippines followed with 16.8 percent increase to 380,179 units from 325,468 units in 2016.

Indonesia sold a total of 994,436 units or 2 percent higher than 975,162 units last year while Thailand grew by 12.5 percent to 767,348 units from 681,930 units.

Malaysia sold a total of 521,907 units or 1.3 percent more than the 515,252 units in 2016. Vietnam suffered a 6.6 percent negative growth to 226,649 units from 242,656 units. Singapore reported sales of 102,934 units and Brunei with a negative 10.7 percent growth to 10,375 units from 11,621 units in 2016.