Hanoi (VNA) – Despite difficulties in the first half of 2018, the domesticautomobile market saw impressive growth compared to the previous year withnearly 290,000 vehicles sold during the year, an annual rise of 5.8 percent.

Accordingto the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (VAMA), sales of passenger cars grew 27.7 percent, whilethose of commercial and special-use vehicles dropped 19.2 percent and 48.5 percent,respectively.

Theassociation noted that in the last four months of 2018, automobile salesexpanded strongly. More than 25,000 vehicles were sold in September, 29,040 inOctober and 30,902 in November and 34,234 in December, with the latter figurethe highest level for a month in two years.

Importswere greatly impacted by a decree which tightened regulations on cars shippedto Vietnam, allowing domestically-produced and assembled automobiles to drivethe market’s growth.

Bythe end of 2018, sales of domestically assembled vehicles rose 10.6 percent,while that of imported car fell 6.2 percent year on year.

Theleading firms in the market were Thaco, Toyota Vietnam, Ford Vietnam and HondaVietnam. Thaco led in sales with 96,127 vehicles, up 7 percent over 2017 and 34.7percent of the market share.

Thacowas followed by Toyota Vietnam with 65,856 vehicles, accounting for 23.8percent of Vietnam’s automobile market, and Honda Vietnam with 27,099 vehicles,making up 9.8 percent of the market. Meanwhile, Ford Vietnam sold 24,636vehicles, a decrease of 14 percent compared to 2017, owning 8.9 percent of themarket.

Aspart of efforts to increase sales ahead of the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday,some companies, including Nissan and Ford Vietnam, have slashed the prices of somemodels by 10-30 million VND each.

PhamVan Dung, General Director of Ford Vietnam, predicted that Vietnam’s automobileindustry will continue to grow in 2019 and beyond. He explained the ratio ofpopulation owning a car is still low compared to many regional countries.-VNA