According to the October sales report of Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association (VAMA), sales of the whole Vietnamese automobile market reached 28,899 units last month, up to 21 per cent higher than the previous month and 18 per cent higher than the figure for October 2017.
Sales of passenger cars and special-purpose vehicles were up 25 and 31 per cent respectively while the figure for commercial vehicles were down seven per cent.
Notably, there were 17,599 units of domestically assembled automobiles handed over to customers, increasing by only two per cent. Meanwhile, the number of imported automobiles handed over to customers last month increased by up to 46 per cent to reach 11,300 units.
The two largest players in the market continue to be Toyota and Truong Hai Automobile (Thaco). After lagging far behind Thaco in the market share for a long time, Toyota gradually improved its sales and officially surpassed its rival in October 2018.
Specifically, Toyota's sales of cars last month was 8,426 units, representing 30 per cent of the market, up 35 per cent over the previous month. Meanwhile, Thaco handed over to customers 8,175 units last month to gain a market share of 29.2 per cent.
Despite increasing by 16 per cent in volume, the domestic assembler still experienced a 6.4 per cent decrease in the market share.
Since the Decree No.116 was imposed and put into effect, Toyota’s domestically assembled Camry, Corolla Altis, Vios, and Innova were the key models helping the Japanese automobile manufacturer to maintain its market share.
However, having impressively been back in the race, Toyota Fortuner and some other imported models including Avanza AG, Avanza AE, Wigo WG, Wigo WE and Rush, together with Toyota’s best seller Vios, helped Toyota to win back its top position.
Earlier in the first four months of this year, Thaco’s market share was always over 40 per cent, almost double Toyota’s for months. However, since May 2018, the domestic assembler’s sales decreased to 39.1 per cent and kept falling strongly to 29.3 per cent in September 2018.
That is also the reason why in the first ten months of this year, sales volume and market share of Thaco were still higher than Toyota’s.
In addition to these two companies, Honda's sales in October 2018 also increased by up to 47 per cent to reach 3,475 units with a market share of 12.4 per cent. Ford also experienced a production increase of 11 per cent in the past month, reaching 2,574 units but the market share decreased slightly by 0.5 percentage points.
