Perodua president and chief executive office Datuk Zainal Abidin Ahmad said the company's sales saw a jump to 24,433 units in March due to strong demand particularly for the Ativa SUV which secured 14,574 bookings since order taking started on Feb 19.
Month-on-month, Perodua’s registrations jumped by 47.3% to 24,433 units in March 2021 compared to February 2021’s 16,583 units.
Zainal added that of the 14,574 Ativa bookings garnered so far, 4,345 units have been delivered since the new model’s launch on March 3, and that Ativa demand is currently skewed 67% towards the range-topping AV, which is within projections.
“This makes the Perodua Ativa the best-selling compact SUV in the country in the month of March. We are glad that the Ativa has gotten off to such a strong start, and that we well surpassed our 3,000-unit monthly delivery target in the first month.
“We thank Malaysians for their support and trust. On our end, we are committed towards timely deliveries of every order made,” Zainal said.
On production, Zainal said that Perodua manufactured 60,383 vehicles in 1Q21 – a 23% boost over the 49,280 units produced in 1Q20.
“For now, our biggest challenge is the semiconductor chip shortage, which is having varying impacts on carmakers on a global scale.
“We are working with our partners to find alternative supply while at the same time monitoring the situation on a daily basis to ensure continued operation of our production lines,” he said.
Despite the semiconductor issue, Zainal said Perodua would still be able to meet its initial 2021 sales target of 240,000 units.
Perodua’s 2021 sales target represents a 9% increase from the 220,163 units sold in 2020, and is expected to lead to a record purchase of RM6.5bil worth of locally-sourced components this year.
The company also targets a production of 272,000 units (+23% from 2020’s 220,968 units) and 2.4 million service intakes (+20% from 2020’s 2 million service intakes) this year.
