Vehicle sales slowly recovering

MANILA, Philippines — In a sign the country’s auto industry is slowly recovering from the impact of the health crisis, vehicle sales posted a slight decline in January from its pre-pandemic level a year ago.

A joint report by the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (CAMPI) and the Truck Manufacturers Association Inc. released yesterday showed their combined vehicle sales reached 23,380 units in January, just 1.4 percent lower than the 23,723 units sold in the same month last year.

Sales of the commercial vehicle (CV) segment, which accounted for bulk or 68.80 percent of the market, dipped 6.4 percent to 16,085 units in January from the 17,180 units sold in the same month in the previous year.

CAMPI said the CV sales performance reflects the continuous trend of the shift in consumer preference to larger vehicles.

Meanwhile, passenger car (PC) sales rose 11.5 percent to 7,295 units in January from 6,543 units in the same month a year ago.

Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. remained the market leader with a 46.28 percent share in total sales.

Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. came in second with a 15.05 percent share, while Nissan Philippines Inc. was third with a 9.93 percent share.

CAMPI said the slight year-on-year decrease in total vehicle sales in January is seen as a positive sign that the automotive industry is slowly recovering.

Despite the good start seen in January, CAMPI president Rommel Gutierrez said the group remains cautiously optimistic in the coming months given the pandemic and provisional safeguard measures on imported vehicles.

“The pandemic still poses a challenge to the automotive industry. We are also monitoring how the market will react with the imposition of the provisional safeguard duties starting February, which could potentially impact on the prices of imported motor vehicles,” he said.

While some CAMPI members have local assembly operations, they also sell imported vehicles.

The Department of Trade and Industry ordered the imposition of provisional safeguard measures in the form of cash bond amounting to P70,000 for every imported PC unit and P110,000 for every light commercial vehicle (LCV) unit brought to the country from overseas after it found through its evaluation of the petition filed by labor group Philippine Metalworkers’ Alliance that  higher vehicle imports are causing serious injury to local motor vehicle manufacturing.

Collection of the provisional safeguard measures which would be in effect for 200 days, started immediately after the issuance of the Bureau of Customs’ memorandum order 6-2021 on Feb. 1.

Last Feb.5, the Tariff Commission started its probe to determine if there is a need to impose a definitive safeguard measure on PC and LCV imports.

Under the Safeguard Measures Act, safeguard measures can be imposed to provide relief to the local industry when there is serious threat or injury from increased imports of like products.