KUALA LUMPUR: Vehicle sales in Malaysia are expected to hit another annual record high at 661,900 units in 2014, according to Kenanga Research.
In a report, the research unit's analyst Desmond Chong noted that as of end-November, TIV (total industry volume) growth increased slightly by 1% at 601,805 units.
He also pointed out that in November, looking at the national marques, while Perodua sales volume remained resilient in November (+24% year-on-year), which was helped by the overwhelming demand for the Perodua Axia, Proton’s sales performance still remained weak (an 11% drop year-on-year).
Chong believes that the recent strong debut of the Proton Iriz has yet to translate into comparable sales, due to the zero booking fee which gave consumers options for alternative choices.
He also noted that in November, sales for non-national marques such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan continued to see growth, helped by heavy year-end promotional activities.
He forecasts December TIV to be 60,095 units, driven by high demand for the Perodua Axia and aggressive sales campaigns by automakers.
For 2015, Chong expects vehicle sales to stay flat at 662,000 units, mainly underpinned by the resilient Malaysian economy and normal vehicle replacement for old cars (with the current five million cars on the road aged between 10 and 15 years).
Kenanga Research's in-house real GDP (gross domestic product) growth forecast for the Malaysian economy in 2015 is 5.1%.
However, Chong also noted, while cheaper car prices (with potential savings of 1% to 3%) could be seen post-GST (goods and services tax) implementation, this catalyst for vehicle sales growth could easily be offset by the tighter credit for hire-purchase as well as the rising cost of living.
