Thai sales of pick-up trucks drop in July

Rising diesel prices continued to cause local pick-up truck sales to slip even more in July for all Japanese and American car companies, The Bangkok Post reports. The sluggish market also reflected increasingly poor economic sentiment, according to industry figures officially compiled by Toyota Motor Thailand. Mitsubishi suffered the most, with July pick-up sales off 56.6% year-on-year to 571 units. Isuzu fared best with a drop of only 19.7% to 8,194 units. Toyota Vice-President Vutigorn Suriyachantananont said that nationwide automobile sales in the first seven months still rose 6.6% to 366,247 units, with the main contribution being 31.7% growth of passenger car sales due to the continued rising demand for E20-fuelled cars. (August 18, 2008)