Vietnam Auto Sales Down 5% in 10 Months Despite 103% Rise in Oct

Local automobile manufacturers sold 92,136 cars between January and October, down 5% from a year earlier despite a sharp rise of 103% last month, the Vietnam Association of Automobile Manufacturers (VAMA) said.VAMA attributed the situation to a 12% fall in auto sales in the first nine months.On-year decrease was led by sales of commercial vehicles, which dropped 17% on-year to 45,545 units. SUV/MPV car sales fell 6% to 21,559 units in the period, VAMA said in a report.

The VAMA report also showed that its members sold 11,762 new vehicles in October, compared with only 5,789 units it announced in the same month last year. The Oct sales meanwhile rose by 6.2% from the previous month.

Two segments that were major drivers for growth last month are passenger cars which grew 171% from last October to 3,866 units; and commercial vehicles which rose 94% to 5,279 units.

Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp topped the list with 3,017 cars sold in October, up 25.7% from the same month last year. Its accumulated sales so far this year rose 24.4% from a year earlier to 22,463 cars.

The government statistics has showed that Vietnam spent US$903 million importing 56,600 cars under the mode of completed built unit (CBU) in Jan-Oct period, down 3.4% in value despite a rise of 20.7% in volume.

In October, the country imported 9,000 vehicles worth US$140 million, up 20.7% in terms of volume but down 3.4% in value.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade forecast that the country will import around 60,000 CBUs this year.

Following table is the breakdown of car sales, market shares and the growth of the 16 VAMA carmakers in Jan-Oct 2009: