Automobile sales rise sharply in April

Hanoi (VNA) – The Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA) reported on May 9 that up to 21,123 vehicles were sold in the domestic market in April.

Of the total, the sales of tourist vehicles reached 13,549, up 5 percent, while the sales of commercial vehicles decreased 8 percent to 6,375 units and the sales of specialised vehicles also fell 8 percent to 1,217 units as compared with the previous month.

Notably, the domestically-assembled cars segment saw a fall of 5 percent in sales to 17,910 vehicles. On the contrary, 3,213 vehicles were imported, up 37 percent month-on-month.

Truong Hai Automobile JSC (Thaco) continued to take the lead in the market with 8,679 cars sold. It was followed by Toyota Vietnam with 4,234 units.

With 2,815 units delivered to customers, Honda Vietnam took the third position of Ford Vietnam which sold only 1,359 units in the month.

During the January-April period, total automobile sales were 80,681 units, a decrease of 7 percent year-on-year. The sales of tourist vehicles increased 2 percent, while that of commercial and specialised cars fell 18 percent and 36 percent, respectively.

The sales of domestically-assembled cars edged up 8 percent against a decrease of 47 percent in the sales of imported cars.

Experts said consumers are still expecting cheaper cars with preferential import taxes.

However, since the first batch of about 2,000 cars imported by Honda Vietnam with import tax of zero percent, there were no more carmakers allowed to import vehicles over the past three months.-VNA