Malaysia car sales in 2022 – total industry volume hits all-time high at 720k units, up 212k units from 2021

A total of 720,658 vehicles were sold in Malaysia in 2022, the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) revealed in its annual press conference today, and this is an increase of 211,775 units over the 508,883 units sold in the country in 2021, or a gain of 41.6%.

The total industry volume (TIV) achieved in 2022 marks an all-time high for the country, and this is also the first time the TIV has surpassed the 700,000-unit mark, the association said. This also meant that the full-year TIV for 2022 surpassed its 600,000-unit forecast by just over 120,000 units.

The rebound comes after two consecutive years of decline for Malaysia’s TIV, as the 2021 total was down 20,603 units or 3.9% from 2020, and 2020 was itself 12.4% down from the 2019 TIV of 604,281 units.

This achievement of sales volume was attributed to pent-up demand for new vehicles in 2022, especially in the first half, as well as the decision to allow buyers with confirmed bookings of vehicles made before the June 30, 2022 cut-off date for the sales tax exemption to be registered by March 31 of this year.

This was also due in part to the low base effect, or low TIV in the first half of 2021 due to the pandemic-driven implementation of the Full Movement Control Order (FMCO) in June 2021, the MAA continued.

By market segment, passenger vehicles charted sales of 641,773 units in 2022, which is an increase of 189,287 units or 41.8% over the 452,486 units sold in 2021. Meanwhile, commercial vehicle sales recorded 87,885 units in 2022, which is up 22,488 units or 39.9% over the 56,397 units sold in 2021.

For comparison, this exceeded the MAA’s prediction in January 2022 that passenger vehicles would gain 87,337 units or 19.3%, and that commercial vehicles would gain 3,752 units or 6.7% over their respective figures in 2021.

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