By Ashwin Kumar
SHAH ALAM, Jan 15 — Perodua has an unassailable lead in the local automotive market and is expected to remain as the number one player in Malaysia in the coming year.
Business analysis firm Frost & Sullivan in a report said Perodua has a 44.3 per cent share in the passenger vehicles market, followed by Proton at 18 per cent. Japanese carmaker Honda comes in third at 15.4 per cent.
“The overall market continues to be more concentrated, with the share of the top three players increasing to 77.7 per cent in 2019,” Frost & Sullivan associate partner Vivek Vaidya said in the Frost & Sullivan’s report on the industry’s 2020 outlook and 2019 review.
In terms of market-share gains last year, the largest was registered by Proton.
“Its market share grew from 12.1 per cent to 15.4 per cent due to the strong performance of the Proton Saga and Proton X70,” said Vaidya, who is also senior vice-president of mobility.
“In the process, Proton regained the second position after a gap of a few years. Perodua has an unassailable lead over all the other players and is expected to remain as the top player in Malaysia. Honda has dropped to the third position, followed by Toyota, which has been occupying the fourth position for a few years now.”
Passenger cars make up over 80 per cent of the vehicles sold nationwide. The rest are commercial vehicles.
Of the 608,790 units sold last year, 549,232 were passenger cars, such as sedans, Multi-Purpose Vehicles (MPV)s and Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV).
In the commercial vehicle segment, sales dipped last year to 54,441 units from 2018’s 65,512.
“With the exception of the panel van, all other commercial vehicle types, such as pick-ups and trucks, witnessed negative year-on-year growth,” said Vaidya.
Toyota continues to dominate the commercial vehicle segment at 31.4 per cent, mainly due to the strong sales of its Hilux.
Although it saw a drop in sales last year, Isuzu continues to retain the second position at 16.1 per cent. Mitsubishi rounds out the top three at 10.5 per cent.
Ford places fourth at 10.4 per cent, and Hino has surpassed Nissan to become fifth.
“There is a high correlation between the economy’s performance and the commercial vehicle segment. New infrastructure projects stimulate higher demand,” said Vaidya.
Meanwhile, Frost & Sullivan had forecasted Malaysia’s vehicle sales to reach approximately 608,790 units in 2020 at a one per cent growth rate.
It, however, said that the Malaysian automotive industry could be affected by the uncertain global outlook, such as the US-Iran conflict, which would impact long term investment decisions.
“The Malaysian economy is expected to continue recording positive growth in 2020, driving consumer confidence throughout the year,” the report read.
