Perodua Reduces 2021 Sales Forecast

Due to circumstances which have affected both sales and production, Perodua has reduced its 2021 sales forecast to 214,000 vehicles. This updated projection is 10.8% lower than its initial 240,000 unit target set earlier.

In August, Perodua registered 6,988 vehicles, a vast improvement over the 655 units in July when a strict lockdown was in effect, hampering manufacturing and sales activities. All of Perodua’s operations were halted due to the national lockdown introduced on 1 June 2021. Its manufacturing and sales activities have gradually resumed operations subsequent to 16 August as movement restrictions are lifted.

“We would see the production and registration numbers multiply in September as the situation normalise,” said Perodua President and Chief Executive Officer, Dato’ Zainal Abidin Ahmad. On a year-to-date basis, Perodua registered 104,933 vehicles for the first 8 months of the year. This averages out to about 13,117 cars a month. This total is a 12.5% contraction compared to the 119,977 vehicles sold between January and August last year.

“We are working on closing this gap by further increasing our manufacturing output as well as further improving our standard operating procedures to ensure the safety of our people and our customers,” Dato’ Zainal said.

“Our main concern now is to ensure that the automotive industry will be able to sustain itself this year as COVID-19 and the semiconductor supply shortage continue to haunt the manufacturers both domestically and globally,” he commented further.

On the global issue of the semiconductor chip shortage, Dato’ Zainal said that the company had been able to secure enough supply of chips to ensure that production would resume smoothly this year. Furthermore, he expects that most of the company’s outstanding sales orders would be met within this year.

“For now, the semiconductor chip supply is still a global issue and we are working with our partners and suppliers to limit any disruption it may cause,” he said.