The Malaysian car industry shows further signs of recovery in October 2021, according to the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA).
The movement control orders that plagued most of 2021 still haunt most parties in the Malaysian automotive industry, but the good news is that things are improving rather drastically. The gap in sales between this year and last year-to-date has shrunk to 4.8% and that is encouraging news according to the latest MAA numbers for sales and production.
What’s even more encouraging is the fact that Total Industry Volume has increased by 43% over September 2021 in October 2021. Given that September 2021 was the first full month of sales and production since the full lockdowns ended in mid-August, this could be a sign that the market overall is improving beyond filling backorders that were lost in the middle of 2021.
October 2021 also showed the Total Industry Volume exceed 60,000 units for the second time this year, with the previous improvement coming in March 2021 when the industry moved 64,875 units.
MAA’s outlook for November 2021 isn’t quite as optimistic as it has been in the last 2 months. They state that sales in November will maintain around the October 2021 numbers. However, they also note that year-end promotional campaigns will be launched to spur sales further.
Our hunch is that sales will indeed pick-up a little more than MAA expects. This is due to a number of expected car launches in the sub-RM100,000 price bracket. The first is the newly launched Perodua Myvi facelift, which brings Autonomous Cruise Control and other feature enhancements to Malaysia’s favourite hatchback under RM60,000. As it is, Perodua has collected over 4,000 bookings in the week leading up to the launch. The other launch that’s anticipated soon is the Honda City Hatchback, which replaces the popular Jazz model. This feature rich B-segment hatchback is sure to prove popular given how much Malaysians seem to love the Honda brand.
These are the two vehicles most likely to make a bump in the sales numbers in the last two months of 2021. Are there other models that might to do the same? Let us know what you think.
