Kuala Lumpur, 21 Jan: Perodua has beaten its previous annual sales record of 227,243 units in 2018 with 240,341 vehicles sold in 2019, spurred by continued strong demand for all its models – in ascending order, the Alza, Aruz, Bezza, Axia and Myvi.
“This achievement truly surpassed our expectations and we sincerely thank all Malaysians for the strong support,” said Perodua President and Chief Executive Officer Dato’ Zainal Abidin Ahmad.
“On the back of strong demand, we foresee our sales performance this year to be on par with last year’s. We are setting a 2020 sales target of 240,000 units and are cautiously optimistic that it is attainable despite a more competitive market this year,” he added.
Perodua’s 2019 sales figure constitutes a year-on-year jump of 13,098 units (+5.8%) and is the highest annual sales figure ever for the company.
“Against a 2019 total industry volume (TIV) estimated at 604,775 units, Perodua took nearly 40% of the Malaysian market, overtaking last year’s 38%,” said Dato’ Zainal.
Every Perodua model led its segment in 2019, including the Perodua Aruz, which closed the year as Malaysia’s best-selling SUV with 30,115 units sold.
To date, over 2,000 units of the 2020 Perodua Bezza, which launched two weeks ago, have found homes out of an order tally of 15,000, which includes 8,000 converted orders for the previous model.
“We estimate that we have about 13,000 unfulfilled bookings in total from last year. To our valued customers, we are fully aware of the matter and are addressing it as much as we can. We appreciate your patience and apologise for your wait,” the President and CEO said.
Perodua also expects to boost production by 4% to 254,000 units from 2019’s 244,400 units. This includes production for export and to stock up for 2021.
“We foresee a challenging first half in 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 Dato’ Zainal.
He said that with the production increase, Perodua expects to spend RM6 billion this year to buy local components, up from RM5.4 billion spent last year.
Perodua also made some gains on the export front in 2019 – the Bezza emerged as the best-selling sub-1.0 litre sedan in Sri Lanka while the carmaker entered a new market, the Seychelles.
“While our exports remained modest at about 2,800 units last year, we are making good progress in establishing our brand overseas and are looking at further improving the numbers this year,” said Dato’ Zainal.
In after-sales, Perodua saw 2.35 million service intakes in 2019 throughout its 186 service centres nationwide, charting an 8.3% jump over 2018’s 2.17 million service intakes.
On Perodua’s sales and service network, Dato’ Zainal said the company is working with its dealers, which currently make up 75% of its sales and service network, to upgrade and invest to serve customers better.
“We have the largest vehicle sales and service network in Malaysia. Our intention is not so much to expand further but to enhance the facilities we already have by working closely with our dealers for the benefit of our valued customers,” said the President and CEO.