It’s the first of April, and aside from being April Fools’ Day, it’s also the start of the second quarter of 2021. Perodua has wasted no time in sharing its first quarter sales figures, where it sold an estimated total of 57,911 vehicles in 1Q21 – a 29% increase year-on-year compared to the same period last year.
According to Perodua President and CEO Dato’ Zainal Abidin Ahmad, this was largely due to the 47.3% month-on-month jump in its March sales numbers (est. 24,433 units sold), underpinned by the success of the newly-launched Perodua Ativa.
Since Perodua opened the order books on the 19th of February for the Ativa, the national carmaker has already received 14,574 bookings for the compact SUV. Of those, 4,345 units have already found their new homes since the model’s launch on the 3rd of March, making it the best-selling compact SUV for that month.
The Perodua press release also stated that 67% of the bookings for the Ativa is for the range-topping AV variant, fitting in with the company’s own projections.
Commenting on the compact SUV’s success, Dato’ Zainal said: “We are glad that the Perodua Ativa has gotten off to such a strong start, and that we well surpassed our 3,000-unit monthly delivery target in the first month.We thank Malaysians for their support and trust. On our end, we are committed towards timely deliveries of every order made.”
Dato’ Zainal added that Perodua manufactured a total of 60,383 vehicles in the first quarter of 2021, a 23% increase over the same period last year.
“For now, our biggest challenge is the semiconductor chip shortage, which is having varying impacts on carmakers on a global scale,” he added. “We are working with our partners to find alternative supply while at the same time monitoring the situation on a daily basis to ensure continued operation of our production lines.”
Despite the chip shortage issue, Perodua is confident that it will be able to meet its 2021 sales target of 240,000 units – a 9% increase from the 220,163 units sold last year.
The company is also targetting a production of 272,000 units this year, where it will be purchasing RM6.5 billion worth of locally-sourced components.
