Passenger Car Sales Decline by 3.5% in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has witnessed a decline in passenger car sales by 3.5% for the first half of the ongoing year. The sales report for the month of June 2015 and the first half of this year has been brought to limelight by the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA). The reports haven't been the way the authorities would like it to be, forcing them to revise the target for the remaining half of the year.

Earlier, the Total Industry Volume (TIV) for 2015 was 680,000 units, which is now being revised to 670,000 units by MAA sighting a drop in sales. The period from Jan-Jun 2014 witnessed a sale of 333,156 units as compared to this year's sales, which account to 322,184 units.

Having a glance at the passenger car sales, the first six months of the previous year saw 296,790 units rolled out of the showrooms, while that figure has declined to 286,533 units this year suffering a loss of 10,257 units. Talking about the commercial vehicle market, it fell down to 35,651 units from 36,366 units.

SUV sub-segment has been a clear winner despite the drop in overall sales, which saw an increase of 58.7% from the previous year's first six months. While the MPV segment contributes majorly to the downfall with a 30.6% drop. All other segments apart from above mentioned ones have seen a decline from the previous year.

MAA points this drop in TIV to the implementation of GST (Goods and Services Tax), which took effect from April. The market saw a rise in sales in the month of March as consumers were concerned about the hike in the prices due to imposed GST. As a result, April was slow in terms of sales and also the consumers would be holding back on high-priced markets such as automobile and property due to a 17-year dip in Ringgit vs US dollar.

MAA expects the market to rise in the second half of the year as it is believed that the consumers are getting used to GST and the new models coming in from different car brands could help to improve the sales numbers for the remaining year.

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