January vehicle sales down after sales promotions, offers over

In a statement yesterday, the association said sales volume in January was 19% or 10,154 units lower than December 2017.

KUALA LUMPUR: January vehicle sales fell 19% to 44,575 units from December 2017 and the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) expects slower sales for February due to shorter working month.

The MAA said on Wednesday of the 44,575 units sold in January, 39,108 were passenger vehicles and the remaining 5,557 were commercial vehicles.

“Sales promotion and offers by car companies in the previous month (December) resulted in most sales were concluded in December,” it said.

The sales volume in January was down 0.2% from a year ago.

On the outlook for February, the MAA expected the sales volume to be lower than January's, citing the short working mont due to the Chinese New Year festive holidays.

The MAA pointed that production in January was higher at 68,002 units compared with 45,532 a year ago. Of the number, 64,333 were passenger vehicles and the remaining 3,669 commercial vehicles.