This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on May 22, 2017

KUALA TERENGGANU: Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd (Perodua), the country’s largest carmaker by volume, said the production of its best-selling Perodua Myvi model will reach one million units this month.

Perodua president and chief executive officer Datuk Dr Aminar Rashid Salleh said the rolling out of the one-millionth unit of the Myvi is expected “sometime this month”, which is considered a milestone for the carmaker since the vehicle was first introduced into the local automotive market in May 2005.

“The Myvi was Malaysia’s No 1 car model until the end of 2014. The model continues to be among the top bestselling models in the country currently,” he told a media briefing here last Friday.

He said Myvi has been sold in seven countries since 2006, namely Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Brunei, Singapore, the UK, Fiji and Nepal.

“Myvi’s biggest export market is Indonesia under the Daihatsu Sirion brand with nearly 31,000 vehicles sold since 2007. In total, Perodua exported 35,400 Myvi/Sirion models since 2006 in these markets,” he noted.

“There is an ongoing expression of interest [in the Myvi] from other countries such as Africa, Central Asia and [the] Middle East. However, our focus at this point of time is growing our presence in our existing export markets, as well as our domestic market,” Aminar added.

He said Perodua will continue with the model as demand is still strong along with other models under the Perodua brand, which include Axia, Bezza and Alza.

Meanwhile, the carmaker is keeping its target to sell 202,000 units in 2017, which is 2.5% fewer than the 207,110 units it sold last year.

“At this point, we are not revising our sales target as the market continues to be very challenging,” said Aminar.

This is despite total industry volume (TIV) of new vehicles for the first four months of 2017 is estimated to rise 5.4% to 182,800 units from 173,400 units in the same period last year, based on Perodua’s internal calculations.

“Based on this estimation, we foresee our market share at 35.4% so far this year,” said Aminar.

According to Aminar, Perodua sold 64,700 vehicles during the period under review, up 4.1% from 62,100 vehicles a year ago.

He added that during the January to April period, all Perodua vehicles were the bestselling model in their respective segments, with Axia selling 22,000 units, Bezza at 19,500 units, Myvi at 3,900 units and Alza at 9,300 units.

“One of the factors contributing to the 5% growth in TIV [for the first four months] was that original equipment manufacturers were trying to minimise their carry-over stock, which was relatively high, which explained the surge in sales,” he said.

Aminar said whether this growth is a reflection of the strength of the auto industry remains to be seen, which is why the group remains cautious.