So far we’ve taken a look at overall, passenger car and pick-up truck sales data broken down by brand, but there’s one more we haven’t touched, and that is the premium car segment. This is where it gets interesting, because while sales of these more expensive vehicles have increased, it’s not the usual players that benefit from this.
Overall, the eight premium brands (bearing in mind that Tesla, Audi and smart do not report their sales figures to the Malaysian Automotive Association, or MAA) sold 1,060 more cars last year at 29,213 units. As usual, the lion’s share of the market was sewn up by BMW and Mercedes-Benz – together, they constituted 72.4% of all sales (BMW 41%, Mercedes 31.4%).
But Munich’s sales were virtually flat at 11,973 units (three fewer than in 2022), while Mercedes delivered 568 fewer cars at 9,163 – a decrease of 5.8%. Distant third-placer Volvo has also seen a decline of 15.6% or 498 units to 2,696 units, its market share dwindling from 11.3 to 9.2%.
It appears that buyers have instead gravitated towards the bit players, led by Lexus. Sales of Toyota’s luxury offshoot almost doubled to 1,901 units, with a commensurate market share growth to 6.5%. Meanwhile, MINI saw a healthy 49% jump in sales to 1,808 units, the extra 595 cars delivered more than making up for its parent brand’s underperformance.
But the biggest surprise was Porsche, sales of which grew 70.5% to 1,526 units, clearly driven by an increase in the number of high net worth individuals. That seems to have been at the expense of Land Rover, which saw a decrease of 42.4% to 76 units, dipping under the three-figure mark.
Its stablemate Jaguar has a comparatively more positive year – it too almost doubled its sales, although in this case it’s only up 18 units to 37 units. That’s barely any more than Lotus, which opened its books with 33 units sold, driven by the new Eletre SUV.
Looking to sell your car? Sell it with Carro.
hello lhdn
I work hard to afford the niceties in life. Jgn dengki if you’re B40 surviving on gomen handouts. Everyone has a mind and a pair of hands. If you chose to be lazy & poor then don’t envy us
Don tipu. Your accountant worked hard so you don’t have to pay tax
That anyone buys JLR is beyond me. They may have the best designs and interiors, but what’s the point when everything falls apart. Even Tesla, a company known for useless build quality, has better QC than JLR.
No sweetie. Tesla is no better than JLR
Nobody cares on what you think
Classic example of the rich getting even richer, benefiting at the expense of the masses, something that has always been the case, but backed with solid data as is evidenced here.
Porsche’s rise is likely also attributed to the CKD Cayenne and the tax-exempt Taycan, the former which makes the 500k+ SUV market no longer a GLE/GLS/X5/X7 game, since many would opt to buy a Cayenne that is a step above the typical BMW/MB SUVs.
Disagree. So far, I actually saw several X7 LCI otr around KL while didn’t see many buy X5 pre LCI due to production transformation process to X5 LCI (recently launched this year).
But true on GLS as not even one saw GLS otr but also not true on GLE, as last year there are people bought GLE but agree that not as many as Cayenne and X5
Not sure about the exact sales figures but I’ve seen a lot more Cayennes OTR since early 2023. I agree X7 and GLE are still common OTR but relatively speaking they would probably have done even better if Cayenne wasn’t CKD.
It seems like customers are switching things up lately. You know, with more BMW and Mercedes-Benz cars cruising around, it looks like people who really know their stuff are checking out other brands to mix things up a bit. Seems like folks want something different, and they’re not just following the herd anymore.