Malaysia Sales Drop as Buyers Rush to Beat Tax Hike

Malaysia’s new-vehicle sales plunged 27.6% year-on-year in March to 48,800 units, but the decline is deceiving because a year ago consumers were rushing into salesrooms to buy before the April 1 introduction of a 6% goods and services tax.

The Malaysian Automotive Assn. says the March result was up 29% from February due to a longer working month and a rush for deliveries by companies, with their financial year ending March 31.

The trade group says March sales were down 18,587 units from 67,387 a year ago.

New-car sales fell 27.3% to 43,247 units, while commercial-vehicle deliveries dropped 29.8% to 5,553. The result left first-quarter sales off 22.0% at 131,267 units with cars down 21.3% at 117,373 and CVs down 27.8% at 13,894.

The MAA also says production in March fell 20.4% from 60,085 units to 47,810. Of that total, 45,802 were passenger vehicles and the remaining 2,008 were CVs.

Three months into the new year, the industry build was down 22.0% at 129,591 units. Car production was down 19.5% to 121,980 units and the CV output was off 37.1% at 7,611.

Market leader Perodua blames flagging economic confidence as its Q1 sales fell 17.4% from 57,200 units a year ago. Perodua sold 17,300 units in March, down 22.8% from year-ago’s 22,400.

The MAA predicts full-year sales will drop 2.5% to 650,000 units this year from last year’s record 666,674.

Mercedes-Benz Malaysia bucked the drop in the domestic market with a first-quarter result up 41% to 2,658 units.

The government’s Bernama news agency quotes Mark Raine, vice president-sales and marketing, telling a media briefing the German automaker’s Malaysia subsidiary achieved a market share of 2.3%, an increase of 0.5% from a year earlier.

The locally built C-, E- and S-Class models recording a collective growth of 26% to 1,814 units.