As Malaysia started to open up, with the relaxation of the movement restrictions, this didn’t bring any joy to the passenger vehicles sector, with declines across the board, in figures released by the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA).
Market Starts to See Light at the End of the Tunnel
A tepid August has made way for an equally disappointing September, with production and sales figures falling once again. Starting with production, there was a fall from 49,966 sales in September 2020 to 42,556 respectively for this September. This is a drop of 15%. In terms of the year-to-date figures, the market has dropped by 6% or 281,621 2021 sales against 299,881 2020 sales.
Sales have also dropped, with only 38,315 sales registered this September, against 52,704 in September 2020. This is a 27% drop, although the year-to-date fare far better, with only a 9% drop. Last September, 312,427 vehicles were sold, against 282,992 this year so far. The result for the drop in September is partly down to a shortage of chips and customers cancelling orders of certain makes.
The MAA, however, believes that October has cause for optimism. Business operations were restored nationwide, with companies jumping on this opportunity to rapidly increase production and delivery of vehicles, indicating that the final quarter could well be a renaissance for the industry to end the year in style.
