Perodua sales drop 11% in March
In recent years, we have gotten used to hearing month after month of soaring sales from Perodua. So, it was a bit of a surprise today that we received a release telling us that the company’s sales for March 2012 suffered an 11% year on year decrease from 2011.
Compared to 18,000 vehicles sold in March 2011, Perodua dealers were only able to move 16,000 units in March 2012, and the quarter-to-quarter comparison was also not encouraging. There was a 2.2% shrink in Q1 2012 sales to 44,700 vehicles from 45,700 registered in Q1 2011.
“Based on the data we have compiled, the Viva is the worst hit with a 19% drop in sales in the first quarter of this year to 13,000 units from 16,000 units registered in the first 3 months of 2011,” Perodua Managing Director, Datuk Aminar Rashid Salleh said.
Aminar further explained that although bookings remained strong with 20,000 orders collected in March, the tightened loan approval process implemented by Bank Negara is ultimately hurting sales and delaying approval of loans. A process that used to take only three days now requires 20, and according to Aminar, this has resulted in high inventory levels at the stockyards.
“We are currently compiling the data on the effects of the new guidelines to share with the relevant stakeholders and are still hopeful that a solution could be found and that the loan application process could be brought back to normal soon,” he said.
Media reports quoted the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) as saying that the total industry volume for the 1Q 2012 shrank by 12.6% to 138,544 vehicles from 158,432 vehicles in the same period last year.
“We are of the opinion that the estimated TIV for this year may be slightly lower than the figure estimated by MAA due to these difficulties. The vehicles at the entry level are the most badly affected and due to their relatively bigger sales volume, this will have a significant impact to the TIV,” Aminar said.
