Vehicle industry forecasts record sales in 2016

THE PHILIPPINE AUTOMOTIVE industry is expected to post another record-high vehicle sales of about 350,000 units next year on the back of a strong and continued domestic demand, particularly for compact cars.

The forecast, however, was deemed conservative as it reflected a 9-percent growth compared to the 320,000 units that are expected to be sold this year, according IPC assistant Marketing head Joseph Bautista.

The official sales target of the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (Campi) for this year stood at about 310,000 units.

Isuzu Philippines Corp. is also expected to mirror the same growth of about 5 to 10 percent for 2016, given the challenges that the company is anticipating to face by next year. This growth will be much slower than the expected 60 percent surge in vehicle sales for Isuzu Philippines this year.

“Next year will be challenging because of these factors. One, we have new competitors in the SUV market with the new Fortuner and new Montero. There is also a shift in the market because we are not present in some of the expected growth areas for next year such as vans and compact cars or the small cars. So we anticipate it to be below 10 percent,” Bautista explained.

Also affecting the company’s sales next year would be the Asean-Korea Free Trade Agreement (AKFTA), which provides a tariff rate reduction on vehicles imported from Korea to 5 percent from the current 20 percent effective 2016. For one car company, this would be equivalent to a reduction of P20,000 to P80,000 from the current retail prices of its vehicles.

For this year, however, Isuzu Philippines sees sales rising by 60 percent to 22,800 units from the 14,134 units sold last year. The expected sales were higher than the company’s initial forecast of 18,000 units.

Of this year’s sales, about 11,000 units would be muX; 4,500 units for trucks; 4,000 units for Crosswind, and about 3,500 units for the DMax.

Meanwhile, Isuzu Philippines said it was hoping to still be part of the Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy (CARS) Program, which dangles some P27 billion worth of incentives for local assemblers.

“The volume requirement of 200,000 units remains a problem for us. Hopefully we can have a win-win situation. We’re still studying it to see if there are windows for us to participate, say if they can have a special window for mass transportation (requirements) such as jeepneys,” he added.