Growth in PH vehicle output slowed in Oct 2023

MANILA  -The Philippines’ vehicle output continued to rise in October but marked its weakest monthly growth so far this year, recording an uptick of less than 1 percent as most of its peers in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) also experienced slowdowns in varying degrees.

Data released on Thursday by the Asean Automotive Federation, an umbrella group of industry associations from member economies of the regional bloc, showed that Philippine production increased by 0.9 percent, with 10,200 units of vehicles assembled during the month.

Thailand, the biggest producer among the six countries in the regional bloc with vehicle assembly hubs, saw its production drop by 7 percent to 158,734 units during the same month.

READ: PH vehicle output rose over a fifth in Sept

Indonesia also saw its production decline by 23.8 percent, producing 118,308 units, while Vietnam suffered an even deeper decline of 28.3 percent with a production volume of 16,437 units.

In contrast to the three, Malaysia’s production grew by 25.8 percent with its output hitting 74,191 units, while Myanmar’s production soared by 633.3 percent to 374 units.

Despite the weak showing in October, the Philippines’ vehicle production growth during the 10-month period hit 28.5 percent, with local assemblers manufacturing a total of 994,838 new vehicles so far this year.

READ: Asean adoption of EV ecosystem backed

In total, the six countries produced 378,244 vehicle units in October, bringing their combined year-to-date production to 3,602,988 units.

This marks a 0.7 percent increase compared to the 3,576,657 units assembled during the same ten-month period in 2022.

Meanwhile, motorcycle and scooter production in four of the countries that have assembly hubs for them saw overall production fall by more than a third during the same month.

Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand produced a total of 851,330 units of these two wheeled vehicles in October, plunging by 34.5 percent compared to their combined production of 1,298,941 units in the same month in 2022.

Among the five, only the Philippines saw its motorcycle and scooter production grow during the month, increasing slightly by 0.2 percent to 10,4445 units from 10,4196 units a year ago.

The top producer of these two-wheeled vehicles among the five, Indonesia, posted a 7.2-percent contraction to 568,810 units while Thailand’s output dropped by 18.4 percent to 140,114 units.

Data on Vietnam’s production, on the other hand, has not yet been available for the month of October, said the AAF.