Malaysia’s new vehicle market continued to recover in October 2020, by over 5% to 56,670 units from 53,870 units in the same month of last year, based on registration data released by the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA).
The vehicle market looks to be rebounding reasonably well from the 41% decline in the first half of the year, which included a 55% drop in the second quarter after the government imposed a strict Movement Control Order (MCO) in March to help slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government also suspended vehicle sales tax in June until the end of the year to help drive the market forward.
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The MAA also pointed out new models and aggressive promotional campaigns by dealers also played their part in lifting sales while low interest rates resulting from aggressive cuts by the central bank this year were also helping to attract buyers.
Passenger vehicle sales increased by 5.7% to 51,795 units in October from 48,987 a year earlier while commercial vehicles sales fell just slightly to 4,875 units from 4,883 units.
In the first 10 months of the year new vehicle sales were still down by just under 20% at 398,159 units from 496,855 units in the same month of last year, with passenger vehicles sales falling by just over 20% to 361,803 while sales of commercial vehicle sales down by less than 17% at 36,356 units.
Proton reported a 20% sales rise to 11,392 units in October, while year to date sales were up by 6.2% at 84,999 units helped by strong demand for the facelifted X70 SUV. The company had also received 27,400 orders for the new X50 smaller SUV by the end of October.
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By GlobalDataMalaysia’s second national car company Perodua reported 26,852 sales last month.
