Car sales slump in 1 semester
The domestic motor vehicle industry capped the first semester with a continuing negative growth. The industry, which registered total sales of 450,000 units last year, has not yet revised its flat growth target for this year.
Data from both the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (CAMPI) and Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA), which is composed of 22 car players, and the Hyundai Automotive Resources Inc. (HARI), reported heavy declines in sales in the first semester.
CAMPI data showed its first semester sales posting a negative 12.5 percent pulled by the heavy decline in June as sales dropped 21.7 percent against June last year.
According to the report, sales in the first semester reached only 171,362 units versus 195,772 units in the same first half of 2017 with June sales contributing only 29,350 units as against 37,479 units in the same month last year.
Sales from the passenger car segment registered a steeper 16.5 percent decline to 55,746 units from 66,788 units last year than the commercial vehicle segment which declined by 10.4 percent to 115,606 units from 128,984 units last year.
In June alone, the passenger car segment took a beating with huge decline of 42.6 percent to 7,788 units only from 13,525 units in the same month of 2017.
The commercial vehicle segment, however, posted a smaller reduction of 9.9 percent to 21,584 units from 21,219 in June last year.
Among the commercial car categories, only trucks and buses (categories 4 and 5) posted positive growth of 14 and 33 percent, respectively.
Among the big industry players, Nissan Philippines Inc. continued its remarkable turnaround with 24.1 percent increase in sales to clinch the third top slot among 22 players with sales of 13,22 units from10,051 units in the same period first half of 2017.
Toyota Motor Philippines posted a discouraging 14.7 percent decline in sales to 73,136 units from 85,728 units in the same first half last year. Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. slightly declined by 3 percent to 33,500 units from 34,549 units last year.
Meantime, all CBU importing company Hyundai Asia Resources, Inc. (HARI) -- the official distributor of Hyundai vehicles in the country, capped the first semester with a negative growth of 8.1 percent to 15,957 unit sales than the first semester of 2017 of 17,366 units.
Data from HARI showed that sales in the second quarter posted a dramatic 15.2 percent drop to 7,226 units from 8,525 units in the same quarter last year.
The first semester segment results showed 10.0 percent slowdown for the passenger car segment, while the light commercial vehicle segment made better progress with only a 3.9 percent decline.
As the volume driver of the brand, the passenger car segment accounted to more than two-thirds of the total Hyundai vehicles sold in the market of the first half.
The light commercial vehicle segment owned the remaining one-third but took center stage as the segment increased by 4.9 percent, from 2,472 units in 2017 to 2,593 units in 2018.
Agudo, however, expressed confident to end the year on a positive note as the market begins to adjust the the effects of the TRAIN Law.