Sales of imported cars down 55% in H1

Vehicle importers said their volume sales had been cut by more than half as of June, selling only a total of 19,455 units as the pandemic hurt the demand for new cars.

The Association of Vehicle Importers and Distributors Inc. (Avid) said it saw a 54.8-percent decline in sales in the first six months of the year, as opposed to the 43,082 units sold in the same period a year ago.

“This is not the industry’s first crisis but it is surely the most challenging,” Avid president Ma. Fe Perez-Agudo said in a statement on Tuesday.

Avid accounts for just small portion of the country’s auto industry, which is dominatd by members of The Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (Campi) and Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA), which include market leaders Toyota and Mitsubishi.

According to the latest available data from Campi and TMA, their volume sales dropped 51.2 percent in the first six months of the year to 85,041 units from the 174,135 units sold in the same period in 2019.

There was also an uptick in demand in the case of Campi and TMA, when their June sales were compared against the sales made back in May.

“While Avid members and their partner dealerships have gone to great lengths to COVID-proof their facilities, strengthen online e-commerce assets and offer extraordinary promotions and deals to win back customers and encourage buying, headwinds remain,” Perez-Agudo said.

“These include lower remittances, weaker demand and the prospect of a second wave, so we can’t let our guard down,” she added. The group is made up of 21 member companies representing 26 global brands, including Hyundai and Ford.

Avid said it used the previous lockdown to develop COVID-ready processes, structures and organizations.

This, Avid said, allowed its member companies to quickly restart in the second half of May and serve customers in urgent need of maintenance, business enterprises and customers seeking private mobility. INQ