What Perodua will be Doing till 2005
Tan Sri Abdul Rahman Omar, Managing Director of Perodua, can always be counted on to be open about the national carmaker’s plans, seemingly preferring to provide a clear picture rather than allowing the media and public to speculate.
At today’s press conference to introduce the new Kancil 850EZi, he again provided an outline of product plans for the next few years and revealed that the Kembara, which was launched in 1998, will get a new ‘K3’ engine soon. The model, he said, should be launched before the middle of this year and have some cosmetic updates as well.
There will be no other significant changes to the present models for the rest of 2003 although it is possible that there may some cosmetic changes to some. In 2004 too, Tan Sri Abdul Rahman said that it will be a ‘quiet’ year with facelifts to some models and no new models.
Originally, there was a plan to introduce an all-new model in late 2004 but due to a review of production plans, the model will be launched in the second quarter of 2005. Apparently this model will be a significant one for Perodua and its design is being finalized these few months.
“It will become the ‘Kancil’ of our future in terms of being the volume seller,” he said. However, sources told us that it will not be a direct replacement for the Kancil and will be a better car in terms of design and engineering.
“The present Kancil will remain in production for some time, depending on demand. There is no time-frame for retiring it at this time, although it will depend on what new regulations are introduced in coming years. If they are too stringent, then the Kancil may not be able to comply and so we would have to stop selling it,” the source said.
The new model is said to be a joint effort between Perodua and Daihatsu and is likely to have the same platform as a new future model of Daihatsu. Some elements of a concept model which Perodua did a few years ago will be incorporated as they are said to have impressed the Japanese.
On the sales front, Tan Sri Abdul Rahman said that they expect to sell 138,000 units in 2003, compared to 127,000 units in 2002. Perodua’s own data showed that January sales had been around 44,000 units – an industry record – and the company sold some 11,000 units in that month. However, February, with its long holidays, has seen a rather significant drop in sales volume.
He revealed that the government should be announcing the new excise duty structure ‘within the next two months’ after listening to the views of various parties in the Malaysian auto industry on what would be the best approach.
“The substantial reduction of import duties for ASEAN-made models from the present minimum of 140% to 20% in 2005 will certainly have an effect on us. Prices will fall but as already stated by even the Prime Minister himself, the revenues lost from import duties will be offset by higher excise duties.,” he explained.
“How the new structure will be is important to us and when we know it, then we will have to decide on what strategy to take for the future to maintain our competitive position,” he said.
Nevertheless, Perodua should still be well positioned to be a strong player in the AFTA era, especially since it is allied with Daihatsu (which owns the factory). The Malaysian market is Daihatsu’s largest export market in a sense and they are therefore giving a lot of attention to their operation here. No other country in ASEAN has minicar production too and being an entry-level type of model, it would be in great demand all the time.
