January Up, February Down for New Vehicle Sales
Depending on how you want to look at it, new vehicle sales are looking good in 2002 based on the first two months of sales… or things are going downhill with a decline of 25% between January and February. However, there are unusual factors which have resulted in the volumes having such a difference and it would be hard to form a conclusion on the market trend from these two months.
Firstly, the January volume of 39,646 units – 29% higher than December 2001 – was exceptional because it was the first month of the year. Registrations are usually high because many buyers prefer to have their vehicle carrying a new registration year rather than an old one, plus the fact that Chinese New Year was coming up, inspiring some people to buy a new vehicle to celebrate.
The low February volume was due to the month having fewer business days due to the long holiday period and the lack of buyer interest in the immediate weeks after the Chinese New Year. So a lower volume should not be unusual.
When you compare the volume of January/February 2002 to the same two months in 2001, there is a 21% increase in volume in 2002 – 69,068 units against 57,172 units. Interestingly, though the volume of the non-national makes is less than half that of Proton, Perodua, HICOM MTB and Inokom combined, non-national makes had a 29% increase in volume whereas the national makes had a 19% increase.
In the passenger car segment alone, non-national makes such as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, etc recorded a total volume of 5,506 units, a 40% increase over 2001, compared to Proton and Perodua increasing by 19% from 43,821 units to 52,278 units. Needless to say, though, the two national makes still have a commanding share of 90% in this segment. It should be noted that the data does not include Hyundai sales because the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) member has not submitted the information to the association yet.
The commercial vehicle segment, which includes pick-ups, sees non-national makes being more dominant – 5,446 units against 968 units. The same dominance by non-national makes is also evident in the 4WD segment where non-national makes have a 63% share, albeit on a volume of only 3,061 units.
On the production side, the data shows that national makes increased production during January and February by 11% over the same period in 2001, while non-national makes assembled 16% more vehicles, giving a combined total of 72,468 units or 12% more vehicles produced in 2002.
The data was released by the MAA today at the conclusion of its Annual General Meeting. During the AGM, Aishah Ahmad of Ford Malaysia was again elected to the position of President while the vice-presidents for manufacturing, policy and trade were K.C. Khoo (Swedish Motor Assemblies), Tan Hoe Pin (Tan Chong Motor) and Dato’ Michael Lim (UMW Toyota Motor), respectively. Belinda Lim was elected to the position of Honorary Secretary/Treasurer.
Members elected to the MAA council were representatives of Cycle & Carriage Bintang, DRB-Oriental-Honda, ACM, Hino Malaysia and Naza-Kia.
Meeting the press after the AGM, the MAA president reviewed the latest sales data and said that the association maintains its total industry volume forecast for 2002 at 410,000 units, a modest 3% increase over that of 2001 volumes.
On the issue of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and the future of the industry, she explained that the association still had no clear idea of what the government would be doing but expected an announcement to be made in the course of this year.
“The MAA has prepared a paper which will be submitted to the Ministry of International Trade & Industry next month during the ministry’s dialogue session. Until then, we have no idea of the government measures that will be taken in preparation for AFTA, or the period following the opening of the auto sector,” said Cik Aishah.
Commenting on speculation that while the government will meet its commitment to ‘open up’ by 2005 but not at the 0% – 5% duty level under AFTA, Cik Aishah confirmed that there was such speculation which suggested that the duty level may fall only to 20% in 2005 and progressively drop to the 5% level by 2008. However, she said that there was still no definite indication of this move announced yet.
Cik Aishah said that the MAA’s members are keen to know what the government plans to do as they need to make plans in advance with their principals. “For new model planning, it requires some five years so our members need to have a clear idea of the direction and policies of the government with regard to the liberalisation of the auto sector,” she said.
On another issue concerning the recent government directive to all workshops to display charges, Cik Aishah revealed that its members had not yet received any official directive on the matter. However, when such a directive was received, there would be no problem complying, she said.
