KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s car sales are expected to grow by 3.15 per cent to 685,950 units year-on-year for 2015, said Frost & Sullivan.
Its senior partner, Kavan Mukhtyar, said the decline in fuel prices would lead to higher car sales in the first quarter of this year.
“We foresee an increase in the sales of compact cars as consumers would focus on fuel-efficient vehicles,” Mukhtyar said at the presentation of the Malaysia Automotive Outlook 2015 here today.
He said sales of both national and non-national cars for 2014 were expected to be at 665,000 units.
For the national car market segment, Mukhtyar expected the 53.2 per cent market share for this year to be same as 2014’s.
He said Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd’s (Perodua) market share stood at 33.1 per cent and Proton Holdings Bhd (Proton) 20.1 per cent of the total national car sector.
“Perodua unveiled the Axia model last September while Proton introduced Iriz in December and we can only see the full sales performance starting from this year,” Mukhtyar said.
He said non-national car company, UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd, increased its market share to 12.3 per cent in 2014 from 10.6 per cent in 2013 and Honda Malaysia Sdn Bhd’s improved to 13 per cent in 2014 from 8.8 per cent in 2013.
“We also expect the non-national carmakers to grow further as they plan to assemble the cars here as part of the localisation strategy, which would bring down the prices,” he said. – BERNAMA