Car sales continued to tick upwards in September as the sector continued its recovery from the drop in sales during the second-quarter covid-19 lockdown, according to industry data released yesterday. Figures from the Automotive Information Council (AMIC) show that vehicle sales rose 11.25% y-o-y to 22.9k in September, up from 20.6k sold in the same period last year. The sales come on the heels of a 13% rise to 20.8k in August.

Passenger cars lead the recovery: Sales of passenger cars surged more than 24% y-o-y last month to around 17.5k vehicles, up from 13.7k in September 2019 and 16k in August. Sales volumes of passenger cars fell by as much as 26% during the government’s partial lockdown of the economy earlier this year, which caused dealerships to close and consumers to defer purchases.

Truck sales up, buses down: Truck sales increased slightly to 3.3k vehicles from 3.2k in August, up 9.6% from September of last year when around 3.1k units were sold. While bus sales were up to 2.5k units from 1.6k sold in August, they were down 34.1% on an annual basis from 3.8k units sold in September 2019.