Overall, however, the motor vehicle industry is off for a slow start as sales in the first month of the year dropped 5.34 percent with sales reaching only 6,880 units as against 6,518 units in January last year.
A joint report by the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (CAMPI) and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) blamed the price increase and continued peso depreciation as the main culprit for the slow start. The January performance was only 6.5 percent of the industry’s total forecast of 100,000 units for the year.
TMA president Elizabeth Lee, however, said that January is usually a low month as the market is still recovering from significant expenses made in the previous holiday season.
Despite the poor January sales, the industry still sees positive growth for this year assuming the elections will turn out to be relatively clean and honest to boost investor confidence for the country.
Of the total figure, the passenger car segment sold a total of 2,428 units, a hefty 32.3 percent increase from 1,835 units in the same period last year.
Commercial vehicles still dominate the market with sales reaching 4,090 units but the performance was 18.9 percent lower than the 5,045 units sold in January last year.
As a result, the commercial vehicle’s dominant market share last year of 74 percent was staved off to 63 percent in January this year while the passenger car market has improved to 37 percent in January from 26 percent last year.
This early shift in the preference for cars instead of commercial vehicles was largely due to the passage last year of the excise tax law which reduced tax on passenger cars and imposed a minimum excise tax on utility vehicles and higher excise tax rates on the otherwise excise-tax free sports utility vehicles.
Sales of commercial vehicles started to outsmart the passenger cars when the government has decided to exempt the so-called Asian utility vehicles from paying excise tax.
As shown by the joint CAMPI-TMA report, sales of AUVs posted a significant drop both in the same period and month on month comparison.
January sales of AUVs was down by 26.28 percent with sales reaching only 1,813 units as against January 2003 figure of 2,461 units.
Compared to December last year’s AUV sales of 1,993 units, the January 2004 sales was 9 percent lower.
The lower AUV sales followed after Honda Cars Phils. Inc. introduced its SUV version of the CRV causing a drastic cut in the overall AUV sales.
Toyota Motor Phils. Corp. still retains its category leadership with 45.5 percent for its REVO model followed by Mitsubishi Motor Phils. Corp. with 28.9 percent for its Adventure model and Isuzu Philippines Corp. with 23.1 percent for its Crosswind model.
