Bermaz warns of tough year ahead after weak Q1

By THE STAR | 10 September 2020


KUALA LUMPUR: Bermaz Motors Bhd, the distributor of Mazda cars in Malaysia, sees a challenging year ahead for the company after a steep drop in quarterly profits in the three months ended July 31.

"Although the sales tax reliefs and aggressive promotional campaigns by the Group have produced encouraging results for the Malaysian operations, the group is nevertheless still cautious of the post Covid-19 pandemic impacts on the overall Malaysian economy and expects the automotive sector to remain challenging in 2020," it said.

"Hence, any launch of new and/or new facelifts Mazda models will be dependent on market sentiments and the evolving economic conditions going forward," Bermaz said in a statement today.

The company announced today an 81% drop in first quarter net profit to RM9.2mil compared with RM50.5mil made a year ago.

Revenue declined to RM449mil from RM535mil previously.

The decline in profit was largely due to lower profit contribution from the domestic operations, and share of loss contribution from one of its associated companies, Mazda Malaysia Sdn Bhd.

"The lower profit contribution from the domestic operations was mainly attributed to lower unit sales and lower gross margin arising from aggressive promotional campaigns such as the free 6 years warranty and 6 years free maintenance to boost sales," it said.

"The negative contribution from MMSB was mainly due to the significant drop in unit sales with minimal orders from both the domestic and export markets during the Movement Control Order (MCO) and CMCO periods."

Keywords