Car sales speed up by 10% in January

February 21, 2025 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines —  Starting the year strong with a 10-percent increase in vehicle sales in January, the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (CAMPI) is aiming for record-high sales of 500,000 units this year.

A joint report from the CAMPI and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA) released yesterday showed that vehicle sales reached 37,604 units in January, 10.4 percent higher than the 34,060 units sold in the same month last year.

Driving the growth in January sales was the commercial vehicle segment with 29,875 units sold, up by 16.6 percent from 25,614 units in the previous year.

Sales of the passenger car segment, on the other hand, declined by 8.5 percent to 7,729 units in January from 8,446 units in the same month a year ago.

The data also showed that a total of 1,600 electric vehicles (EVs) were sold in January.

Of the EVs sold, 1,445 units were hybrid EVs, 146 were battery EVs and nine were plug-in hybrid EVs.

Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. remained the leading market player with a 48-percent share in sales in January.

Ranking second was Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. with a 19.6-percent share, while Nissan Philippines Inc. placed third with a 6.3-percent share.

This was followed by Suzuki Philippines Inc. with a 4.7-percent share and Ford Motor Co. Philippines Inc. with 4.2 percent.

“CAMPI is confident in setting the aspirational figure of 500,000 units sales as its target for this year. Newly rolled out models and anticipated introduction of new models are some of the factors that will contribute to achieving this target,” CAMPI president Rommel Gutierrez said.

Last year, CAMPI and TMA sales reached a record-high of 467,252 units.