UMW Toyota Motor (UMWT) is off to a great start this year. In January 2022 last month, the company sold 7,528 Toyota and Lexus vehicles. Compared to the same period in 2021 (3,845 units), it’s a huge 96% increase in sales.

However, it’s worth noting that Malaysia was under lockdown in January 2021 due to COVID-19, which affected car sales quite a bit at the time. Nonetheless, 7,528 sales in a month is still a respectable figure, especially for a foreign car brand.

Of the 7,528 units sold by UMWT, the Toyota Vios contributed 28% of total sales. This makes the B-segment sedan the company’s best-selling passenger vehicle. Things look even better in the commercial side – which include pickup trucks – where the Toyota Hilux made up 38% of last month’s sales.

UMWT also shared an interesting bit of news for the recently launched Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid: over 40% of sales for the C-segment SUV consists of the hybrid variant. This is quite a high percentage for a hybrid model, and it’ll be interesting to see if this trend will continue in the next few months.

“We are thankful for the government’s decision to extend the SST exemption incentives for passenger vehicles. This has greatly helped automotive players like us to recover from the impact of the pandemic during the last two years,” said the president of UMWT, Ravindran Kurusamy.