KUALA LUMPUR: Perodua's sales rose to 32,179 in March, in line with a jump in production ahead of the end-month registration deadline for the waiver of the sales and service tax (SST).
That represents a sales increase of 20.2% compared with March last year and an increase of 29% compared to February 2023.
Sales for the quarter meanwhile was up 27.5% to 78,564 units compared with 61,624 in the same period last year.
According to Perodua, production in March rose to 33,666 units, which brought its Jan-March production up 33.9% year-on-year to 84,800 units.
"These achievements can be attributed to several factors, such as our efforts to fulfil the Penjana orders before its deadline on 31 March 2023, production improvements throughout the supplier ecosystem and better coordination within our sales network,” said Perodua president and CEO Datuk Sri Zainal Abidin Ahmad in a statement.
He added that there were a small number of Penjana orders the company was unable to fulfill but will honour the SST-exempt amount guaranteed under the initiative.
Moving forward, Zainal said Perodua is expected to further build on these achievements as the number of bookings for its models continue to be healthy.
He said the sustained production growth managed to reduce some of the waiting period in certain models.
“Only particular models such as the Bezza, Axia and Alza have a slightly longer waiting period based on their respective variants and colour,” he added.
Zainal said the global price of raw materials decreased recently, which has eased cost pressures for suppliers, Perodua as well as most of the automotive players.
He said the favourable conditions will give Perodua a chance to build up its stock faster while reducing the waiting period for customers.
In late January, Perodua announced a production target of 330,000 cars and sales target of 314,000 cars in 2023.
