The Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) published its latest forecasted total industry volume (TIV) figures of 765,000 units for 2024. This figure consists of 696,150 passenger cars and 68,850 commercial vehicles.
The new figure represents a slight increase of 3.4% over its original forecast of 740,000 total vehicles, which it published in January 2024. Also, it represents a significant jump of 59,731 units over last year’s actual TIV.
In a press conference today, MAA said that the revised forecast was made based on a resilient domestic economy (GDP well placed to expand range 4% to 5%), Bank Negara Malaysia’s decision to maintain OPR at 3%, new industry players, new models launch (both ICE and EV) vehicles, and MAA members’ continuation of aggressive promotional strategies that will lead to an increase in sales.
The latter has already resulted in a 8.1% year-on-year increase in TIV for the first half of 2024, which saw a total of 392,052 units sold (370,740 passenger vehicles, up 9.1%; 21,312 commercial vehicles, down 6.1%). Among those, the national carmakers’ sales totaled 241,937 units, representing a 62% market share year-on-year increase in sales, while non-national made 38% to 148,359 units.
As a result, the national brands now constitute approximately 62% of the total passenger vehicles market share in the first half of 2024.
For the first half of 2024, the factors that contributed to a higher TIV were the resilient domestic economy, in which Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew higher at a rate of 4.2%, OPR’s stable rate at 3% as of May 2023, stabilized socio-political environment, stable employment market, many backlog order, particularly in the A segment, many successful new models – exciting features, affordability, well received in the market, and the surge increased of the battery electric vehicle (BEV) due to introduction of many new models.
This is evidenced in the monthly sales figures except in March and June when the total vehicles sales were consistently higher in the first half of 2024 compared to the similar corresponding month in the first half of 2023.
Moving forward, MAA is expecting an increase in TIV for 2024 at 765,000 units, before rising gradually to 736,300 in 2027.
