From August 31 2025 – National Independence Day – Malaysians aged 18 and above received a one-off payment of RM 100 from the government, which they were able to use to purchase essential products until 31 December 2025. The subsidy could be utilised for selected SKUs in mostly FMCG categories, in over 4,000 stores nationwide. The estimated beneficiaries of the subsidy totalled 22 million people, who received a combined RM 2 billion.
The resulting cash injection into the economy should lead to market growth. However, it is important to remember that the primary goal of the government aid is to subsidise purchases, not necessarily to grow the economy.
MySARA 100 remains a highly relevant topic for the FMCG sector, as the government plans to repeat the initiative in February 2026. This will coincide with festive purchasing for Chinese New Year, as well as Ramadan.
At Worldpanel by Numerator, we investigated the efficacy of the government subsidy by closely monitoring the shopping behaviour of 4,000 Peninsular Malaysian household panellists for in-home consumption, between 8 September and 5 October 2025. In addition to indicating whether they used MySARA 100 on their shopping trips, they recorded all purchases in the basket, regardless of whether or not the category was covered under MySARA 100.
The findings of our study will help FMCG brands to prepare for February 2026.
