MALAYSIA’s direct selling industry, an inadvertent beneficiary of the Covid-19 pandemic, is expected to grow turnover at a solid pace over the next few years amid strong interest from consumers and distributors.
“We’ve seen growth almost every year over the last decade,” Datuk Tan Chong Guan, president of the Direct Selling Association of Malaysia (DSAM), tells The Edge in an interview.
Turnover has been growing at a double-digit pace since 2017, says Tan, citing figures from the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs. In 2017, turnover grew 16.5% year on year to RM15.9 billion, a year later by 12.8% to RM17.93 billion, and in 2019 by a further 20.1% to RM21.54 billion.