Volvo Cars has overtaken some premium rivals in terms growth in Malaysia.
In the last year, almost all premium car brands have done well in Malaysia. But when it comes to growth, there has been only one premium automotive brand, Volvo Cars that has surpassed the rest. It was also their 6th year of continues sales growth and their highest ever total vehicle sales in Malaysia.
Yes, the immediate German rivals have been selling very well and almost every new model has seen sold out reactions from launch, but all of them have not seen a RISE in total sales due to the on-going pandemic and also the un-favorable currency exchange rate which in some ways hurts the bank balance of some Malaysian buyers who are involved in global business deals.
We even reported earlier last year that Volvo Cars had certain models that were sold out (the XC60) and there was a long waiting list because of chip shortages and factory closures due to Covid-19.
Volvo Cars dealers around Malaysia were having to pacify customers eager to get their new Volvo’s before the SST discounts ends in December 2021 and some Volvo dealers even had to sell their demonstration units and company allocated cars to customers. Even Volvo SELEKT (their in house used car division) had no stock of used Volvo’s and they were advertising that they wanted to BUY used Volvos.
This is why Volvo Car Malaysia last week proudly announced its sales and performance results for the year 2021, closing the past year strongly with total sales of 2,229 units, a 14.3 percent increase from the previous year.
Meanwhile, Volvo Cars Malaysia has also sold more vehicles than Porsche, Audi and Lexus in Malaysia.
Their sales success can be attributed to a few factors. Starting with good after sales from the dealer network, followed by a rise in used car values in recent years and solid product engineering.
Volvo is back and they are a brand to watch in coming years as they move strongly into electrification globally and also Malaysia.
Plus, Volvo Car Malaysia has a new Managing Director who came on board in the middle of last year. American born Charles Frump brings with him decades of automotive experience and 12 years of Volvo branding in his pocket.
He is already initiating changes, that you and me will cannot see yet, and more will be done in coming months to elevate Volvo Cars in Malaysia.
On a global scale, Volvo Cars sales grew by 5.6 percent to 698,693 cars in the full year 2021. This results also demonstrated the continued popularity of Volvo Cars’ Recharge line-up of cars with a fully electric or plug-in hybrid powertrain.
Sales of Recharge models grew by 63.9 per cent in 2021, compared with 2020. Recharge cars made up 27 percent of the company’s total sales volume in 2021. Almost 40 percent of all new Volvo cars sold in December were Recharge models, whereof fully electric cars made up 7.4 percent.
