NEW car sales in November grew nine per cent to 40,865 units from 37,512 units in October, helped by a longer working month and year-end promotions.

The Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA), in its monthly sales and production data released yesterday, said of the month's total sales, passenger cars accounted for 36,254 units while the remaining 4,611 units were commercial vehicles.

However, the association expects to see a drop in sales for December as buyers will normally wait until the new year before purchasing a car.

"December is usually the slowest based on our year-end seasonal index as buyers rather wait to avoid depreciation in year of manufacturing," said MAA president Datuk Aishah Ahmad when contacted by Business Times.

Buyers would rather wait for the new year because a more recent buy would fetch better trade-in value in the used car market.

Besides the expected sales drop in December, industry players are also cautious on the outlook for next year.

Aishah said the decline in new car sales was expected to continue in 2009 due to higher interest rates, tightening of hire-purchase loans and the impact of the global economic downturn.

Reviewing the industry sales and production so far, the MAA said total sales for the 11 months stood at 508,290 units from 444,932 previously. Passenger cars made up 462,065 units.

Total January-November production this year was 498,419 units from 373,233 units in the same period last year. - By Azlan Abu Bakar