2020 is a year many won't miss. That's certainly the case for the local automotive industry, which struggled to move its inventory especially when the Movement Control Order (MCO) was first implemented last March in a bid to curb the spread of Covid-19; the de facto buzz word of the year. 

As of the third quarter of 2020, car sales numbers were down by over 100,000 units from the year-to-date total of 2019 – a near-23 percent decline that was especially hard on niche and premium manufacturers. A challenging economic climate tilted the scales towards the high-volume players, with manufacturers of affordable vehicles finding themselves on the more opportune end of a market with tighter purse strings. And while Japanese makes like Honda and Toyota mounted a late recovery as buyers resumed activity towards the tail end of 2020, it was the Malaysian duo of Perodua and Proton that reaped the most rewards, with the latter even defying the odds by improving on its sales tally from the year before. 

Perodua, the country's undisputed market leader by volume, sold a whopping 220,154 new cars over the last 12 months, 10,154 units more than its initial annual target of 210,000 units. Although it has sold more cars in the space of a year before, the figure is still largely impressive for a carmaker that did not launch a single new product in 2020 – the facelifted Bezza is the closest thing Perodua had to a new car all year. The company's president and CEO Datuk Zainal Abidin Ahmad (bottom left) credited the uptick in sales to the sales tax exemption under the government's Penjana initiative to sustain the automotive industry's momentum amidst a Covid-stricken economy. He also noted that the Rawang-based manufacturer managed to produce 220,968 vehicles despite having to halt production from March to May 2020 due to MCO restrictions. 

Over in Tanjung Malim, Proton ended 2020 as the only carmaker to improve on its 2019 sales performance with a total of 109,716 cars sold – 13,306 more than before. Although the Proton X50 stole most of the year's headlines, the Malaysian carmaker earmarked the Proton Persona, Iriz, Exora and Saga as the main drivers of volume growth for the brand; the Saga was naturally Proton's best seller, with 46,527 units sold, given its affordable price point. All four models were extensively updated in 2019 and the investment clearly paid off with each model improving on their annual sales figures despite the pandemic.

Products aside, Proton's aftersales network has also grown with the opening of 20 additional 3S and 4S outlets to bring the grand total to 140 by the end of 2020. The company also transferred ownership of 49 of its branches externally as it shifts its retail sales model to a wholesale one to allow more focus on product development, quality control and exports. Ultimately, CEO Li Chunrong (top right) pins Proton's positive year down to "a combination of good strategy and hard work", which has also created a "renewed belief in our product strategy, quality and commitment to our customers". 

With a staggering total of 329,870 cars sold between them in a pandemic-stricken year, Proton and Perodua have managed to make the best out of an otherwise rocky year which hasn't been as kind to other manufacturers. However, the number of new car launches and campaigns in recent months suggest that many are eager to mount a comeback in 2021. Let's keep our fingers crossed in the hopes of seeing more new and exciting rides on our roads in the months to come.