When a steel girder erector being used for the Skyway project near Tramo and Andrews Avenues in Pasay City fell to the ground last month, it hit eight vehicles. Now while it’s noteworthy that the occupants of those cars were miraculously unharmed, it’s also interesting to note that four of those eight vehicles were Toyotas.
You don’t have to be a statistician to see that half of the cars involved were Toyotas. And if you want to talk about odds, there’s a high probability that that’s because of Toyota’s stranglehold on the Philippine market—to the tune of almost 45 percent on average month to month for more than a year already.
That’s almost half of the local market.
Imagine that. Out of 10 cars sold here, almost five of that will be Toyotas. Which means that the 20 or so other Japanese, Korean, American, European, Chinese, and Indian brands competing in our market will be fighting tooth and nail for the other five units.
Extrapolate that to 100 units, or 1,000 units, or 10,000 units, or even to 100,000 units, and it’s still Toyota owning almost half that number. The implications are staggering.
And now comes news that the largest local car manufacturer in the country achieved its highest sales to date in a single month last March. Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP) registered its record-breaking performance of 10,237 units sold. Its previous sales milestone was recorded last October 2014 with 10,163 units sold. Based on the most recent CAMPI report, Toyota registered a market share of 43.5 percent for the month.
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During this record-breaking run, the bestselling vehicle in the country has once again outperformed its best sales level since its introduction. The locally manufactured Toyota Vios registered a total of 2,774 units continuing to show strength in the automotive industry. That’s almost 100 Vioses a day rolling off showroom floors. This is the highest record a single model has achieved in the history of the local automotive scene.
For the first three months of the year, TMP has reached 10,960 and 16,856 sales for its Passenger Car and Commercial Vehicle Segments, respectively. In total, the number one car brand in the Philippines has already sold 27,816 units in just the first quarter of the year. Compared to the same period of last year, Toyota’s performance grew by a stunning 22 percent, outpacing industry growth—not an easy task if you’re already selling in these numbers and already commanding such a dominant market share.
In a statement, TMPC president Michinobu Sugata expressed “The continued robust economy has given us the momentum to achieve this sales milestone. Toyota has also foreseen that market demand will continue to strengthen especially before the long holiday as customers eagerly require new vehicles for out-of-town trips. That is why, we at Toyota, took action by ensuring supply of vehicles to meet the requirements of the consumers during this period.”
I only wish the LTO and its license plate supplier can keep up with such a pace. Then again, the indicators of such prolific sales activity have been very obvious for the last few years that it’s difficult to comprehend that they did not foresee this volume of sales when they were conducting the bidding for the new-look license plate suppler.
Philippine car sales may be booming, but at 200,000-plus units a year, it’s still a far cry from the million-unit levels enjoyed by Thailand and Indonesia the last few years. I’ve been to these two countries nine times in the last three years, and I’ve never heard of plate-less new-car issues there. And the LTO should stop claiming that it’s the dealers’ fault because I just acquired a new vehicle last week and there really is no plate available. Not even a sticker. So let this be a countdown to how long it really takes to get a new plate. (Incidentally, I renewed my other car’s registration last January. If memory serves me right, I should have been issued a new plate within 40 days. It’s already April and, again, still no plate and no 2015 sticker.)
Which means that I, like tens of thousands of law-abiding people who work hard to buy and amortize these new cars (half of which are most likely Toyotas), are now worried about being apprehended by LTO enforcers for having no plate. At least the MMDA was sensible and realistic enough to declare that the LTO advisory was unfair and that their own enforcers won’t be apprehending vehicles with no plates.
Okay, I’ve digressed enough.
Going back to Toyota, they deserve the heartiest congratulations for an exemplary sales performance in this country—a dominance of which is not replicated in any part of the globe.
Kudos, too, to Mitsubishi, for stubbornly retaining its strong 2nd place position for the longest time. This is yet another Philippine market-only performance—one which has earned Mitsubishi Motors’ Philippine management team international accolades.
Other notable sales performers boasting double-digit growth that have outpaced their international counterparts include Ford, Chevrolet, and Isuzu—the latter despite having only three consumer models in its line-up. It would be interesting to see how Toyota would fare if, like Isuzu, their models were limited only to an SUV (Fortuner), and AUV/MPV (Innova), and a pickup (Hilux). I wonder how the numbers would fare in comparison. But that’s for another story.
In the meantime, it’s the golden years for car buyers and car enthusiasts alike. And you needn’t have gone to the spectacular recently concluded Manila International Auto Show in World Trade Center to see that.
