THE Philippine unit of Japanese car manufacturer Mitsubishi Motors Corp. is seeing a 22% sales growth for its current fiscal year set to end in March next year led by its locally assembled units, according to its official.
Jack S. Ramirez, Jr., Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. (MMPC) first vice president for sales and marketing, said the company is expecting to sell 74,000 units by the end of its fiscal year, representing a 22% year-on-year growth.
“54,068 units is our sales number from April to November. We have four months to go. With an average of 6,700 units sold per month, our [projected] landing point would be around 74,000 [units],” Mr. Ramirez said on the sidelines of a media event in Makati City last week.
“For the whole of 2022, it was around 60,630 units (sold). If we will end at 74,000 units sold approximately, we have around 22% growth already,” he added.
Despite the growth, Mr. Ramirez said the sales estimate falls short of MMPC’s previously announced target to sell 75,000 units this fiscal year.
“The figure is short [of] the expected 75,000 units sales projection. Nevertheless, that is more than our internal target already,” Mr. Ramirez said.
According to Mr. Ramirez, MMPC’s sales were carried by its completely knocked down or locally assembled units consisting of the L300 utility vehicle and the Mirage G4 sedan.
He added that the car brand’s Xpander multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) also boosted sales.
“Per month, our G4 sells around 2,000 units while the Xpander sells about 1,800 to 2,000 units, and the L300 goes for about 1,200 units,” he said.
Mr. Ramirez also said that MMPC’s sales would receive a boost from the official launch of its all-new Triton pickup truck in January next year.
The price of the upcoming Triton ranges from P1.13 million to P1.92 million depending on the variant.
Meanwhile, Mr. Ramirez projected that there could be weaker sales in December due to the slower bank approval of car loans.
“For December, I think there will be a slight drop in sales as forecasted by the industry members because we expect the loan approval rate of banks to slightly go down because most of the banks have already reached their targets for the year,” Mr. Ramirez said.
“The banks also want to control the bookings in preparation for the next calendar year as well,” he added. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
