This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on February 6, 2018 - February 12, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Sdn Bhd (Perodua) said it sold 17,693 units in January this year — up 25% from 14,203 a year ago — which represented 40.28% of the total industry volume (TIV) last month.

The percentage — against an estimated TIV of 43,930 units — could be the highest-ever monthly market share in Perodua’s history, according to its chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Aminar Rashid Salleh during a luncheon with the media and the group’s business partners here yesterday.

Perodua’s market share stood at 35.53% in 2017, with 204,887 units sold, against a full-year TIV of 576,635 units.

“While we defer to the Malaysian Automotive Association’s (MAA) numbers, we are cautiously optimistic that for January 2018, our monthly market share is the highest ever in our history,” he added. MAA has yet to publish the official TIV for January.

“This was spurred by deliveries of the new Myvi, as well as continued strong demand for our other models,” said Aminar. The new Myvi, alongside Perodua’s other models — Axia, Bezza and Alza — all retained their leads in their respective segments, he added.

The national carmaker sold 9,029 Myvis, 4,085 Axias, 2,776 Bezzas and 1,803 Alzas in January 2018. With no newer launches this year, it is aiming to sell 209,000 cars in 2018 — 2% more than the 204,900 units it sold in 2017, and higher than its record high of 207,110 units in 2016.

Between Nov 9, 2017 and Feb 4 this year, its third-generation Myvi variants were booked 48,000 times, over 50% of which were by new Perodua customers, Aminar shared.

But the group was unable to keep up with the overwhelming demand; only 20,000 units were delivered during that period.

“Our facilities are working overtime … the main focus right now is to expedite the delivery [of the Myvis].

“We sincerely apologise for the wait; the Perodua Manufacturing Sdn Bhd plant will continue to work overtime until demand stabilises [in three to five months],” said Aminar.

In tandem with higher demand, Perodua also expects to breach the RM5 billion mark for the first time this year in terms of annual vehicle parts purchases, from between RM4.8 billion and RM4.9 billion registered in the three years between 2015 and 2017.

Meanwhile, in a related matter, Aminar said it is “too early” to tell the extent of the impact of banks’ recent interest rate hikes — following Bank Negara Malaysia’s move to raise the overnight policy rate by 25 basis points — on group sales.

“Many of our customers opt for the five- to seven-year loan period, so the impact on monthly repayments, based on our estimation, is not too high,” said Aminar.

“But the announcements have only been made recently … we will continue to monitor this; we hope the banks will continue to support us,” said Aminar, adding that Perodua’s historical loan approval rate for its customers stood at just under 50%.