Resurgent luxury marque Volvo has had a splendid year in our market in 2019, as announced at a media event today. Speaking on behalf of the managing director of Volvo Car Malaysia (who was called away due to a personal emergency), marketing & PR director Mr. Akhtar Sulaiman revealed just how well Volvo performed in our market last year, despite an overall decline in the luxury segment.

Beating the odds against a shrinking premium car market, Volvo Car Malaysia logged an increase of 36.1% in retail sales for 2019, with a total of 1,883 cars delivered. The Volvo plant in Shah Alam produced a total of nearly 5,000 cars last year too, with the remaining 3,000+ cars that the plant produced exported to various ASEAN countries (in both left- and right-hand drive forms).

The exemplary performance in 2019 was propelled by major product introductions, like the 2019 Malaysia Car of the Year (Compact SUV/Crossover) XC40 T5 R-Design, the world-renowned and multi-award winning XC90 facelift, as well as the S60 T8 R-Design compact executive saloon. In 2020, the company expects to maintain its momentum off the back of the S60 (now in CKD form), as well as the “S90 facelift,” which was confirmed in the press release without a potential release date given.

2019 also saw the establishment of 5 new Volvo dealerships across the country, to which Volvo has confirmed they will add one more in the city of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah this year. Notably, Malaysia is the second market in Asia Pacific to boast a full 100% implementation of the ‘Volvo Retail Experience’ dealership standard, backed by the arrival of their renewed regional training centre.

Volvo Car Malaysia is set to enjoy momentous growth in 2020, thanks to its already-strong portfolio of models, as well as #recharged models on the way. With production of the XC40 in its stride (though a waiting list still exists for the ‘tough little robot’) and the S60 T8 gaining momentum in the compact-executive saloon space, bolstered by the XC90’s position as the only large premium SUV in the space below RM600,000, we’ve little doubt that by this time next year, they’ll have even better numbers to report.