KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's new vehicles sales are expected to fare better in June than May as the Sales and Service Tax (SST) exemption, which is slated to end this month, will lead to aggressive push for sales by car companies.
The rosy outlook, however, was expected to be dampened by the shortage of chips and components coupled with the supply chain disruptions that would continue to affect some makes, the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) said.
"The outlook for June 2022 sales is expected to be better than May 2022 due to impetus from the sales tax exemption for consumers to buy passenger vehicles (which is due to expire by end June 2022) and aggressive push for sales by car companies.
"Shortage of chips and components and the supply chain disruptions will continue to affect some makes," it said.
The MAA outlined that production of passenger vehicles (PV) and commercial vehicles (CV) in May had seen a slight increase compared to the corresponding period last year.
CV saw a production of 3,636, up from 2,363 vehicles produced a year ago, while PV increased to 45,518 from 40,173 last year.
Year-to-date (YTD), the total number of production rose to 258,048 compared to 241,012 in the same period last year.
As for sales, the total number of sales for both PV and CV rose to 49,603, up by 5.1 per cent from 47,207 in May last year.
PV accounted for 43,710 of the total sales while CV's sales stood at 5,893 last month.
YTD, total sales for both segments amounted to 265,656 compared to 247,250 in the corresponding period last year.
"The total industry volume for May 2022 was 12 per cent lower than April 2022 (which was at 56,213 units) due to short working month due to Hari Raya festive holidays and shortage of chips and components as well as logistics delay disruptions continue to affect some makes," it said.