Automotive market: Imported cars face the opposite trend to domestically produced cars.

The Vietnamese automotive market has seen its tenth consecutive month of year-on-year sales growth.

VAMA forecasts that total sales for the whole year will reach approximately 120,000 units, a 9% increase compared to last year.

According to the latest report from the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA), total vehicle sales in January 2014 reached 11,066 units, a 23% increase compared to January 2013. Of these, 8,326 were passenger cars with fewer than 10 seats, and 2,740 were trucks and commercial vehicles.

Compared to the previous month, car sales in the first month of this year saw a 16% decrease. However, it should be noted that December 2013 was a crucial period for the market, with a surge in purchasing power ahead of the Lunar New Year. Meanwhile, January 2014 coincided with the "closing time" and the market also came to a halt for a relatively long holiday.

An interesting highlight of the market in the first month of the year was the contrasting trend between domestically assembled (CKD) and completely built-up (CBU) vehicles compared to the previous month. Despite the same market conditions, while CKD sales decreased by 23% to 7,979 units, CBU sales increased by 7% to 3,087 units.

It should also be noted that the above figures relate to CBU (completely built-up) cars provided by VAMA based on sales results from distributors. Therefore, the discrepancy compared to imported cars (both in quantity and percentage increase/decrease) as reported by the General Statistics Office last month is understandable.

According to VAMA's report, the total number of cars sold in January 2014 by member manufacturers reached 8,900 units, an increase of 21% compared to the same period last year and a decrease of 23% compared to the previous month.

Looking at each model individually, Honda achieved record growth of 354% with 803 units sold. This success was largely driven by two flagship models: the City (415 units) and the CR-V (356 units).

Meanwhile, Toyota achieved a 16% growth with a production volume of 3,145 units, accounting for 35% of the market share.

Based on these results, VAMA forecasts that total sales for the whole year will reach approximately 120,000 units, a 9% increase compared to last year. In the context of a still challenging economy, this can be seen as a positive sign for the automotive market in the new year.

According to thoibaokinhte