The past few years have been hard on the sales figures of most car brands globally. This of course was the case in the Philippine market as the country was hit hard by a string of very strict COVID-19 restrictions back in 2020.
Even the giant which is TMP was going through hard times in 2020
Specifically, the Philippine car sales for 2020 only reached 244,617 units sold. That’s around a 40 percent dip in comparison to the 410,187 units sold in 2019.
According to a report from Autoindustriya though, Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP) looks like it's already on the road to recovery judging by its 2021 sales figures. TMP President Atsuhiro Okamoto shared with the source that it is highly likely that the marque will be able to hit 129,000 unit sales by the end of the year, a figure not far off from TMP’s 130,000 sales target for 2021.
The said target is of course a far cry from the brand’s pre-COVID figures, but it's certainly a cut above the TMP’s 2020 sales performance, which amounted to 99,545 units.
Looking back at Toyota Motor Philippine’s yearly sales numbers history, the brand was consistently hitting unit sales above 150k units. In 2017, TMP managed to sell 182,000 units. That was then followed by 152,000 in 2018, and 161,000 in 2019.
Do remember also that apart from the negative economic effects of COVID, there’s also the global shortage that is yet to be resolved. There’s also the fact that banks are stricter now when it comes to approving loans. So, all things considered, TMP’s sales performance for 2021 is a sure sign that it is punching its way back up.
CKD units like the Vios helped greatly in TMP's recovery
The TMP president credits the brand’s recovery mainly to their complete knock down (CKD) units, which are the Toyota Innova and the Vios. These two now consist of around 37 percent of TMP’s volume. Also, TMP had remained consistent in providing car financing due to the Toyota Financial Services (TFS), the brand’s very own financial institution.
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