2016 Malaysian Vehicle Sales Starts with a 12% drop

Kuala Lumpur: The new vehicle sales in Malaysia has been a roller coaster ride for a very long time. The recent passenger and commercial vehicles sale stats are now released by the Malaysian Automotive Association and as we expected, 2016 is off to a very low start with sale figures declining by 12% to 44,591 units in January, which is 6,011 units less as it was 50,602 units in the same month last year.

The Vehicle sales in 2015 unexpectedly recorded an all time high because of the year-end promotions and fearing the anticipated price rise in 2016. Many major carmakers like Proton, Perodua and Honda announced hike in 2016 due to ringgit’s meagre performance against major trading currencies. As a result of which the market sales in January faced a heavy fall as compared to the sales in December 2015, it came down to 20% or 11,501 units lower than December 2015. The passenger vehicle sales alone faced a fall of 10.6% to 40,000 than 44,697 units of last month, while the commercial vehicle sales fell more than 22% at 4,591 units as compared to the 5,905 units in December.

But, the Malaysian market was well prepared for this fall as the year end sales pushed total industry volume (TIV) to the pinnacle that is never seen before. Many carmakers also introduced heavy discounts and promos to push sales further and meet targets like our very own national car maker Perodua and the number one non national carmaker Honda that reached their year targets easily.

It is also expected that the same sales stats will continue in February as well, considering the small month and Chinese new year holidays. For now, we can only expect the sales to decline further which will not improve until the condition of ringgit improves against foreign currencies.

Read Also: Honda Malaysia Becomes Number One Non-National Brand