However, on an annual basis, Perodua said it sold 190,291 vehicles in 2021, which was 29.8% below the 220,154 in sales it registered in 2020. The company said the pandemic, semiconductor chip supply disruption and recent floods adversely affected production.
In a statement today, president and chief executive officer Zainal Abidin Ahmad said the 190,291 registrations were below the group target of 200,000 units as the challenges in 2021 were greater than anticipated.
Despite this, the Myvi continued to lead the overall Malaysian market in terms of sales by model with 47,525 units, followed by the Axia and Bezza models.
“Despite the lower-than-expected performance for 2021, measures to counter the impact of Covid-19 were successful. We and our suppliers are cooperating and coordinating our efforts to ensure interruptions are minimised.
“These efforts include having a ready team to take active counter-measures at an alternate site if a supplier was under lockdown. We also allocated Perodua staff to shore up suppliers who needed temporary manpower replacements,” Zainal said.
Giving an industry overview, he said the total industry volume (TIV) in 2021 saw an estimated decrease of 23.6% to 504,536 units compared with 528,172 units sold in 2020.
“The local automotive supply chain had a massive setback in recent years. However, there is a silver lining as orders for Perodua vehicles remained healthy,” he said, adding that consumers continued to respond positively to the sales tax exemption introduced by the government.
Last month, Zainal said Perodua had forecast a sales target of 240,000 for 2022. The figure would likely be reviewed later this month after taking into consideration the latest developments and events.
On the recent Perodua flood assistance programme, he said some 1,675 people had responded and their vehicles were being inspected at Perodua service centres across the country.
The programme, announced by Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob on Dec 26, had attracted a lot of interest, Zainal said.
Perodua’s priority was to work with insurance companies and other partners to hasten the approval process for repairs and restore the flood-damaged vehicles.
“We understand that most of our customers rely on their cars for their daily activities and so we will do our best to assist,” he added.