February 2018 seems to end with no major improvement
for the Malaysian automotive market. The sentiment was still weak and not fully
recovered from the slow down of the last quarter, despite the many offering by OEMs
in conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebration. The already short working
month worsened with the festive holiday in the middle of the month.
Typically, February has always been a slow month for automotive sales but last
month was lower than any February month in the past few years.
The TIV for the month of February was
forecasted (pending official announcement by MAA) to be slightly above 41,000
units or 3, 525 units lower than what was recorded in January. Year-To-Date (YTD)
TIV until end February was expected to be around 85,625 units compared to
87,122 units for the same period in 2017. This reflects a drop of 1.7 percent, thus
affecting the potential of reaching an annual TIV of 590,000 units this year,
assuming market is not recovering rapid enough through out the year.
Most of the brands are expected to record a
decline from their January’s performance except for Perodua and Toyota. With
the exception of Perodua too, all brands are expected to be registering lower
than what they did during the same period in 2017.
Perodua, on the other hand continues to do well
in the month of February following the strong start in January 2018. Despite
a weaker market, Perodua managed to register 17,137 units in February, just 500
units lower than January. Based on record, it is the second highest of February
achievement since inception. The highest sales for the month of February was recorded in
2015.
Tentatively (until official announcement by
MAA), Perodua expect to secure 41.7 percent market share in February 2018, the highest
ever in Perodua history. Yes, Myvi continues to spear Perodua’s performance but
all its other models have done equally well last month.
For me, February was one fabulous month to
Peroduans. It did not come easy but with right and effective planning and
executions, the result shows.
