In spite of or because of a looming excise tax hike on new cars, the Philippine automotive industry gained record-setting sales in January 2017, with a 27.8 percent growth over January 2016.
In a joint report, the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (Campi) and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) posted 30,425 units sold compared to 23,808 units in the same month last year.
The sales figures would have been higher had the Association of Vehicle Importers and Distributors (Avid) also released its sales report for January 2017, but Avid only issues quarterly sales reports.
For Campi and TMA, it was the highest January sales record ever, with both the passenger car (PC) and commercial vehicles (CV) segments performing beyond expectations.
The CV segment edged out the PC segment with a 28.1 percent sales growth to 19,441 units, from 15,176 units sold in the year-ago month.
The PC segment’s sales increased by 27.7 percent with 10,984 units sold in January 2017 over 8,632 units in January 2016.
Within the CV segment, all categories—Asian Utility Vehicles (Category 1), Light Commercial Vehicles (Category 2), Light Trucks (Category 3), Category 4 Trucks and Buses, and Category 5 Trucks and Buses—also made gains.
Campi president Rommel Gutierrez, who is concurrently the first vice president of Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. said: “Although we expected lower sales due to seasonality, reaching the 30,000-unit level in January is a good start for the auto industry.”
Gutierrez added, perhaps in reference to the excise tax increase being proposed by the Departments of Finance and Transportation: “We welcome appropriate measures that will not hamper the growth of the auto industry as it continues to positively contribute to the economy.”
Top 10 performers
Campi has 23 members. Here are the highlights of the top 10 performers in January 2017 as compared to January 2016.
This tabulation in Table 1 is sourced from the Joint Campi-TMA Sales Report of January 2017.
The market share of Toyota Motor Philippines leaped from 39.23 percent in January 2016 to 47.80 percent last month, representing an amazing 55.7 percent growth.
Some industry observers are predicting that it’s not a question of if, but when Toyota will capture 50 percent market share.
Nissan Philippines Inc. broke into the Top 5 circle for the first time via a 55.5 percent growth in market share from 1,067 units sold in January last year to 1,659 last month, overtaking Isuzu Philippines Corp. in the process.
Suzuki Philippines also climbed up the chart by selling 1,361 vehicles last month, 42.2 percent up from 957 in January 2016.
Suzuki’s performance shows that subcompact cars and minicars can compete in marketability with bigger vehicles like Isuzu’s pickup truck and SUV.
Honda Cars Philippines Inc. did well last month by posting double-digit growth at 24.2 percent in market share over the same period last year.
Honda’s intro of new, affordable subcompact models like the BR-V and Mobilio was successful.
Ford Motor Company Phils. Inc. and Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. posted modest gains of 2.4 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively, but managed to hang on to their second place (Mitsubishi) and third place (Ford) positions.
Campi accepted Foton Motor Philippines Inc. as a member only last year, but this January it already scored ninth place in the Top 10 with 336 units sold month-to-date (MTD).
The 336 total of Foton consists of 141 passenger vehicles (classified as Light Commercial Vehicles by Campi which includes the Thunder pickup, Toplander SUV, View Traveller minivan, and View TransVan), 104 light-duty trucks, 16 heavy-duty trucks, 84 Category 4 trucks and buses, and 7 Category 5 trucks and buses.
Like Mitsubishi and Ford, Berjaya Auto Phils., the distributor of Mazda vehicles, made only a modest gain this January, posting a 1.05 percent increase in market share with 319 units sold compared to 312 in the same month last year.
The two brands whose market share decreased last month—Isuzu, less 33.1 percent, and Kia (Columbian Autocar Corp.), less 18.9 percent—could have been hampered by short supply of their best-selling models.
For instance, sales of Isuzu’s popular mu-X SUV plunged 52.1 percent this January compared to January 2016 possibly because supply could not meet demand.
The same could be true of the Picanto minicar, Rio subcompact, and Carnival minivan, Kia’s best sellers.
Top 5 passenger car manufacturers
The Campi-TMA report for January 2017 lists 15 passenger car manufacturers. Table 2 shows the top five in terms of sales.
Suzuki Philippines does not reveal its sales per model and Ford Philippines only divulges its top three selling models, so we have no way of knowing what their best-selling PCs are.
That leaves us with Toyota, Mitsubishi and Honda, all three of which sold PC models of at least 500 units each in January 2017.
Top 4 PC nameplates
Table 3 lists the top four PC nameplates for the period under review.
The surge in sales of Toyota’s PCs was expected, but the 26 percent decrease in unit sales of the Honda City was surprising.
Did the availability of the BR-V, Honda’s affordable compact crossover, have something to do with it?
If so, this proves once again that if the price difference between a PC and an LCV like a crossover/SUV is not much, most consumers would choose the latter.
Pickup trucks
Table 4 lists the five top-selling pickup trucks during the period in review.
Note, though, that the Chevrolet Colorado isn’t included because The Covenant Car Company Inc., the Philippine distributor of Chevrolet vehicles and products, is not a Campi member.
Meanwhile, the Nissan Navara gained traction last month with a 118 percent growth in sales to 476 units from 218 in the same period last year.
Toyota’s Hilux managed to retain first place despite a 5 percent drop in sales, while the Ford Ranger scored 718 in sales compared to 542 in January 2016, a 33 percent increase.
The only pickup that failed to improve sales was the Isuzu D-Max, but expect it to bounce back anytime soon.
No other charts
There was no available data for the top five compact cars, minivans, and subcompact cars from Campi members like Ford, Kia, Mazda and Suzuki for the period under review.
Ford gave the sales figures of only their top three sellers (the EcoSport, Everest and Ranger), while Suzuki revealed only the individual percentage growth of their top three gainers (the Ertiga, Jimny and Swift) versus the year-ago period.
The communications manager of one of these brands explained it thus: “We have to comply with Campi guidelines on data release, unfortunately. Meaning we can only send total sales figures and not by model breakdown.
“We regularly submit to Campi our sales reports as well. It’s our understanding that they’re the repository of the members’ performance in the industry.
“Discerning through data on a per model level can be challenging though. There are reasons best explained by our sales team, and most of the time discussed only internally as to why numbers fluctuate.
“[Just] looking at raw numbers might not readily reveal or worse, be misinterpreted by the industry.”
It’s puzzling, then, why Toyota, Mitsubishi, Honda, Isuzu and Nissan readily gave their total sales figures and sales per model for January 2017 as compared to January 2016.
Top 3 nameplates per brand
With the limited data available, we are reduced to merely listing the nameplates of the top three sellers per brand in January 2017 (Table 5).
Among the nameplates above, the biggest gainers are the new Fortuner, whose sales rose from 47 units in January 2016 to 3,563 units in January 2017; the new Honda Civic, from 35 units in January 2016 to 435 last month; the Nissan Almera, from 142 units in January 2016 to 394 last month; the Nissan Navara, up from 218 in January last year to 476 units in January this year; and the Ford EcoSport, from 551 in January 2016 to 922 in January 2017.
Compact crossovers are a runaway hit, as proven by the 545 units sold of the Honda BR-V in January 2017, the first month it became available in the market; and the Nissan Juke, whose sales rose to 209 last month from 172 units in January 2016.
High note
Meanwhile, by virtue of his company’s consistent leadership in auto industry sales, the last word rightfully belongs to Toyota’s senior vice president for marketing, Jose Ariel T. Arias: “According to the most recent Campi report, last January, Toyota garnered a total of 14,542 units with a 47.8 percent market share.
“This was steered by the locally manufactured Vios and the best-selling SUV Fortuner as leaders for both the Passenger Car segment and Commercial Vehicle segment, respectively.
“We are delighted to have started the year on a high note coming from the strong market demand of last December.
“As we move forward to 2017, we at Toyota look at the year with cautious optimism. While the market is expected to remain strong, we also expect various challenges such as the depreciating peso and possible new fiscal regulations that may dampen customer enthusiasm.
“Although this is the case, as has been proven before, Toyota will continue to focus its efforts in finding better ways to create more customer smiles despite the circumstances.
“This is, of course, seen in the expansion of our network through new dealer outlets and our passion towards continuous improvement in serving customers better.”
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