February 2019 New Vehicle Sales – Lower Sales, But Big Gains For Proton And Toyota

Although the market experienced a strong start in January, new vehicle sales took a slight drop in February with only 39,838 vehicles registered, a 17.8% drop from the month prior.

The contraction was due to the short working month brought about by the Chinese New Year festive holidays and new vehicle sales is expected to pick up its momentum from March onwards.

Despite the drop in total sales, SUVs bucked the trend, primarily driven by the Proton X70. The SUV segment saw a 88.6% increase over the same period last year, with 22,212 SUVs finding new homes, versus 11,777 units in 2018.

Perodua, Honda, and Proton experienced a drop in sales in February. Month-on-month, Proton's contracted by 23% but this only temporary as the drop was due to the phasing out of the Iriz and Persona, both of which will be replaced by facelift models later this month.

Deliveries of the China-made Proton X70 (local assembly to begin only in October) continue to be healthy, having delivered its 8,500th unit in just 100 days after its launch. Year-on-year however, Proton's cumulative sales for the first two months of 2019 increased by 41%.

Toyota also bucked the downward trend to register a massive 49.7% jump month-on-month, delivering 4,690 new vehicles in February, versus the 3,133 units in January. The big increase is contributed mostly by the all-new Vios, which have been very well received and production at the new Bukit Raja plant had increased by nearly 50 percent to 3,001 units in February.