After vehicle sales dropped for the most part of the year, Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. is hoping that the upcoming election campaign would help the company grow its sales volume by 10 percent in 2019, an official said.
TMP First Vice President Rommel Gutierrez told reporters during a lunch briefing earlier this week that many purchases are made during the election season as commercial vehicles are used for the campaign.
“I think we’ll hit 10-percent next year from whatever is the actual [year-end] figure for this year,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.
“We have to,” he said when asked why the company is optimistic over next year’s outlook, adding that it’s election time next year.
“A lot of people purchase [vehicles] for campaigns,” he said, adding that these are mostly commercial vehicles, a segment which takes up the majority of the total industry market.
He did not elaborate how much of the sales of next year could actually be attributed to campaign-related expenses.
However, this might finally be the light at the end of the tunnel, after even the prospects of the country’s top vehicle company got dimmed by tax reform and an inflation-wary consumer market.
According to official data, sales of Toyota vehicles dropped 16.9 percent from January to November this year, selling 138,476 units as opposed to 166,601 units in the same period a year ago.
The decline, which has prevailed for the most part of the year if not the entire 2018, might make it easier for the company to grow next year, given the low base figure expected by yearend.