Thailand's new vehicle market expanded by 3.7% to 88,097 units in May from 84,965 units in the same month last year, according to wholesale data compiled by the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI).
This was a sharp slowdown from the more than 10% growth seen in the first four months of the year and came as business and consumer sentiment continued to weaken.
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Economic growth slowed in the first quarter of the year to 2.8% year on year compared with 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2018, due mainly to weaker private consumption and investment growth and declining exports.
Vehicle sales in the first five months of the year were still 9.1% higher at 437,722 compared with 401,264 units a year earlier.
Sales of pickup based vehicles continued to grow strongly in May, by 8.9% to 44,102 units, while sales of passenger cars rose by 1.3% to 33,580 units and SUV sales declined by over 18% to 6,125 units.
Sales of commercial vehicles, excluding pickup-based vehicles, jumped by over 33% to 5,100 units.
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By GlobalDataToyota sales increased by over 10% to 29,337 last month, according to separate industry sources, while Isuzu sales increased 9.2% to 15,651 units, Honda 11,224 units (+7.7%), Mitsubishi Motors 7,308 units (+6.2%), Mazda 4,178 units (-29.0%); Nissan 5,385 units (-1.0%); and Ford 4,650 (-11.6%).
