Sales of locally made cars outnumber imports in first five months

The number of domestically assembled cars sold in the first five month of the year far outnumbered the number of imports, the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA) has reported.

A car show in Vietnam
A car show in Vietnam

The association said 103,746 cars were sold in the January-May period, of which 87,426 were assembled in Vietnam, up 10%, while only 16,320 were imported, down by a dramatic 46% against the same period last year.

In May alone, the number of locally assembled and imported cars stood at 19,467 and 3,598 respectively.

The VAMA said that the sharp fall in the number of imported cars was due to the fact that many importers have not yet met the requirements stipulated in the new government decree on car production and trade.

In the first two months of 2018, no sales of any imported cars were reported while in March only Honda Vietnam imported a shipment of 2,000 cars but they were not cleared by customs or put on sale until the end of April.

In April, the Vietnamese car market saw another shipment of Chevrolet Trailblazers by GM Vietnam, which officially arrived on the market in early May.

Currently other importers are still in the process of finalising the procedures in order to meet the government’s requirements.

More cars from Toyota, Ford, Chevrolet and Suzuki are expected to arrive in Vietnam in late June and early July, and the number of car imports will increase gradually in the final months of the year.

Fiercer competition for sales numbers and market shares is anticipated when the importation of cars accelerates.