MITSUBISHI Motors Philippines Corp. (MMPC) reported it has overtaken Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. (TMPC) as the market leader in the commercial vehicle (CV) segment with sales of 15,997 units in the first half of the year.

MMPC’s strong CV sales helped the company achieve a 7.7-percent growth in the January-to-June period with 16,865 units sold for a second-leading market share of 24 percent.

Toyota, the country’s perennial leader in terms of passenger car, CV and overall sales, sold 15,786 units in the CV segment in the first semester, down 5.7 percent from last year. Toyota, however, continued to lead the market in terms of PC sales (9,198 units) and overall sales (24,984 units).

MMPC sold 15,759 light commercial vehicles (LCVs) and 238 trucks and buses.  The company’s commercial vehicle sales grew by 10.5 percent from the same period last year.

“MMPC’s strong performance in the light CV category can be attributed to the strong demand and wide market acceptance for the Montero Sport and Strada, making them best-sellers in the total mid-size SUV and total double-cab pickup categories, respectively.  Sales of the Montero Sport reached 6,408 units while 1,996 units of Strada pickups were sold in the first half, for an increase of 3.7 percent and 3 percent, respectively, compared with the same period last year,” the automaker said in a statement.

MMPC’s locally manufactured models such as the Adventure and L300 also topped their respective segments. The company sold a total of 3,553 units of the Adventure while L300 sales reached 3,163 in the first half for a 14.5-percent and 8.5-percent increase, respectively.  

Both Adventure and L300 continue to attract fleet requirements, as well as small-scale entrepreneurs due its low-cost maintenance and highly reliable performance

In the truck segment, year-to-date sales increased by double digit with the introduction of the 7th generation Fuso Canter light-duty truck last year, helping the company attain an improved market share of 20.5 percent compared with last year’s 17.4 percent in the segment.

“We remain positive that MMPC will further increase its sales volume in the second half with coming upgrades and additional variants to its core models. However, as MMC , Japan and Thailand manufacturing plants are working on full capacity due to increasing global demand especially for Montero and Strada models, we shall exert full efforts to be able to serve the market requirements which we anticipate to further pick up in the remaining months,” MMPC vice president for marketing services Froilan Dytianquin said. 

(Max V. de Leon)