More work for fuel companies

Malaysia – It’s going to be hard work for the marketers of fuel companies as almost half the population adjusted their mode of transport to their place of work after the recent fuel subsidy restructuring.

According to a research by Pulse Group, 42% of Malaysians adopted a change in their mode of transport to work from using their own cars.

From the portion, 25% moved from using their cars to public transport – mostly consisting LRT and trains while almost 12% opted to use their motorcycles which have already been reported to be picking up in sales statistics.

In early June, the government made adjustments to the fuel subsidy structure which saw a price hike which watched Malaysians fork out more than 40% extra for a litre of fuel.

But there was a 15 sen reduction in late August at the pumps, when the global price of oil began to fall.

“The study was carried out to obtain fresh results surrounding attitudinal economic, political and social behaviour of the Malaysian public,” said Pulse Group CEO Bob Chua.

A total of 1,000 Malaysians in major market centres were participants of the survey which aimed at providing fresh and real time views of Malaysians relating to real-time issues, global current affairs and trends, Chua added.

The respondents in the Internet-based research which took place over a weekend, consisted adults aged between 18 and 64.