May 2018 - Gomoku

Traditionally, May has always been a good month for car sales. On  the average, the TIV will grow around 16 percent from April. Similarly, high hope was put by many OEMs for this year’s May, as it supposed to mark the beginning of festive sales, with Raya, Gawai and Kaamatan are all around the corner. Unfortunately, it was not the case this year as TIV for the month of May failed to even break 43,000 units.

May came and went with multiple challenges that really tested the automotive sales in Malaysia. The 14^th General Election was held on 9^th May, which divert the attention and focus of the public towards the election. The pre-announced holiday on the 9^th in conjunction with the polling day, and followed with 2 days unplanned holiday on the 10^th and 11^th, which followed by weekend directly reduced the number of working and business day by 5 days.

The early announcement of “Zero Rated GST” effective 1^st June 2018 on 17^th of May totally collapsed the market as almost everybody holding the purchase to enjoy zero GST 14 days later. Despite some OEMs scrambled to announce the counter-measure, the market has lost many days and was not able to recover until the end.

Those unexpected conditions contributed to a lower TIV for the month of May, which ended up with only 42,320 units (pending official figure from MAA), 4,769 units short from April and 8,280 units lower compared to the same period in 2017, Hopefully with tax holiday ongoing and raya mood is getting stronger, things will change for the better in June.

On the contrary, Perodua recorded the highest May sales this year, 3^rd highest since inception with 21,980 units registered. With lower TIV, this gave Perodua a whopping 51.9 percent share in the month of May, the highest ever. The move to offer GST rebate finally worked to bring back customers.

It was not an easy task though. Up to 17^th May, Perodua only managed to register 4,700 units with only 110 units registered over a span of 5 days from 9^th to 15^th May. On 18^th May, Perodua reverted its May Sales Campaign and superseded it with the GST rebate. A painful decision but something that has to be done nonetheless.

As they say it, GOMOKU, with 5 months in a row above 40 percent share.

For me, again, I must say, Peroduans have done well even in difficult situation. All, the front-liners, the support groups and the backroom guys emerged as the true winner. You are all the “unsung heroes”. And to Malaysians, I will never exhaust of saying THANK YOU for your endless support to Perodua