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The reintroduction of the sales tax (SST) as of July 1 doesn’t look to have dampened the mood for new car buyers, if Perodua’s order books for the month are anything to go by. The national automaker said it collected 24,265 orders last month, an indication that there is strong demand for its vehicles.
The company also reported higher year-to-date sales numbers, with the 145,689 units sold between January and July this year representing a 48.7% jump from the 97,945 units managed during the same period last year.
Perodua president and CEO Datuk Zainal Abidin Ahmad attributed the significant increase in sales to two main reasons. “The first is due to the strong demand for our vehicles, especially between January and June this year as customers wanted to take advantage of the government’s sales tax exemption initiative. The second reason why the 2022 year-to-date numbers are stronger is due to the nationwide Covid-19 pandemic lockdown that happened between June and mid-August last year,” he explained.
Despite the encouraging YTD numbers, he said the company was still adopting a cautious outlook, as there are still lingering issues in the automotive ecosystem, including a shortage of labour as well as residual semiconductor supply availability. “As a result, our month-to-month sales were reduced by 13.3% to 18,346 units in July compared with 21,164 units registered in June this year,” he said.
Zainal said that the company is working closely with the government to overcome the labour shortage issue and hopes to resolve it by early August. He added that Perodua expects production to resume in full beginning this month.
“On the semiconductor issue, we have secured enough chip supply for us to produce and register more than 247,800 units this year. However, we are still working on sustaining production growth, so this means that we cannot announce our new targets yet,” he stated.
On the topic of total industry volume, he believes that the TIV for 2022 could be more than the revised 630,000 units forecasted last month, given that nearly all automotive brands accumulated massive bookings between January and June.
“Also, given that the government has extended the registration deadline for all vehicles booked on or before June 30 to March 31, 2023, we believe the industry can do better than a 30,000-registration increase by the end of this year,” he added.
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