Car sales in March are reported at 21,127 units, including 12,858 passenger cars, 6,949 commercial cars and 1,320 special-purpose cars, according to sales report of the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association (VAMA).
Vietnam's car market on the rise.
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Total sales units of VAMA's members as at March decreased at 8% compared to the same period of last year, in which passenger cars down 4%, commercial cars down 11% and special-purpose cars down 40%.
By the end of March, sales number of domestically assembled cars went up 8%, while the imported number went down at 48% compared to the same period of last year.
Vietnam has imported 5,000 completely built units (CBU) in March, 25 times higher than the previous month, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO). For an average price of VND525 million (US$23,000) for each unit, the said amount of imported CBUs worth US$115 million.
Comparing to previous months, the imported cars to Vietnam has increased 25 times higher and 8.2 times in value, while the imported car numbers in January and February were 340 and 200, respectively.
The accumulated import turnover of CBUs since January is US$150 million for 5,600 units. The sharp increase of imported CBUs to Vietnam was thanks to car importers' completion of the vehicle type approval (VTA) as required in Decree No.116, informed GSO.
From April onwards, it is expected that the number of imported cars from Thailand and Indonesia will be growing, resulting in the increasing in import turnover in the coming months, GSO forecasted.
Last year, a total of 272,750 units were sold, down 10% on-year, informed Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association. The sales of passenger cars and commercial and special-use vehicles decreased by 15, 2, and 12%, respectively.
The falling sales were attributed to consumers' waiting for a decrease in automobile prices in early 2018 when the automobile import tariff will slip to 0% as the ASEAN trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) took effect in the beginning of 2018.
