Perodua Sold A Gazillion Cars Last Year And Plans To Sell A Gazillion More For 2020

Perodua’s been the market leader for vehicles sales in Malaysia for as long as anyone of us can remember. The run up to 2020 foreshadowed a continuation of that trend but the carmaker has instead erred on the side of caution by targeting flat growth in sales this year.

Last year, it sold a record 240,341 vehicles. That blew its initial prediction of 235,000 out of the water and represents a 5.8 per cent market share growth to a hair’s width shy of 40 per cent over a total industry volume of 604,775 units. Essentially, a Perodua accounted for four of every 10 cars sold last year.

When every single model you sell are segment leaders, that’s not difficult to achieve. The Myvi continues to be the best-seller, followed by the Axia and Bezza with the Aruz snagging the best-selling SUV moniker.

However, Perodua expects a challenging 2020; especially with Proton firing on all cylinders and is about to introduce the X50 compact SUV. The latter will undoubtedly throw a moneky wrench into the works of Perodua’s own SUV that’s all but confirmed (see following piece). Hence the target of 240,000 units of sales for the year.

Nonetheless, production at its Rawang plant will increase by four per cent this year to 254,000 units to cater for export growth as well as increase stocks for 2021.

“We foresee a challenging first half of 2020 as we focus on fulfilling existing bookings. We will evaluate the market situation in the second half while building up our inventory so that we are ready to take advantage of the market if it improves,”said president and CEO Datuk Zainal Abidin Ahmad.

Touching on aftersales, Perodua serviced 2.35 million vehicles in 2019 across its network of 186 centres. That’s an increase over 2018. Furthermore, Perodua is expected to increase its spending on components from local vendors this years to RM6 billion; up from 2019’s RM5.4 billion.