Malaysia vehicle sales up 19.8% for first half, best since 2005

Aishah said that the sales forecast for the industry was revised from its earlier target of 550,000 where they are expecting 2010 to be a better performing year with a 570,000 target. In total, last year saw a total of 536,905 units sold. She said that the 10th Malaysian Plan will provide the multiplier effects which will surely boost the economy further and hence, result if higher demand for new vehicles.

For passenger vehicles, 2010 recorded a total of 271,873 units for the first half of this year, which is quite a sharp increase from last year which saw 228,420 units of new vehicles sold. As for commercial vehicles, there were also substantial increase from 22,885 to 29,204 units sold. She added that passenger cars were the best selling segment within the passenger vehicles category which made up 76% of the total while 21% were MPVs (Multi Purpose Vehicles). SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles) made up 2% while 1% were from the Window Vans segment.

As for supply, she said that for the first six months, production volume too increased by 27.8% where factories rolled out 293,783 units as compared to 229,842 units the last time around. This is widely contributed by the improvement of sales of vehicles for the first six months this year which have spiraled to the manufacturers increasing their production lines. In this context, production of passenger vehicles increased from 209,072 from 269,884 units which is 29.1% while 15.1% more commercial vehicles were produced which stands at 23,899 units from last year’s 20,770 units. For June alone, sales of vehicles were at 54,005 units while last June recorded only 45,245 units.

She also said that the year-on-year growth for July 2010 is expected to grow further but the volume for month-to-month would most likely remain to fulfill the outstanding orders.