Aminar Rashid Salleh marks 100 days at Perodua’s helm
Perodua’s newly-appointed Managing Director En Aminar Rashid Salleh marked his first 100 days in charge of the company with a press briefing of the company’s performance at the Perodua Body & Paint Hub in USJ today.
Having inherited a company in rude health from previous MD, Datuk Syed Abdull Hafiz Syed Abu Bakar, Aminar beamed as he announced a hugely positive performance by Perodua for the first quarter of 2010.
In both sales and service intake figures, Perodua charted all time high monthly figures, recording overall sales of 18,500 cars and a service intake of approximately 148,000 cars for March 2010, both figures surpassing previous record highs of 17,050 sales in July 2008, and 145,000 service intakes in July 2009.
“I am humbled at the hard work and dedication that the Perodua staff have shown during the 100 days that I have been Managing Director at Perodua and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of them for a job well done,” said Aminar at the press conference.
Spurring the increase in demand is the ever-popular Myvi, which sold a total of 7,048 units in March 2010, with the Viva following close behind at 6,671. The newly launched Alza MPV recorded sales of 4,777 units. Since its launch Perodua has picked up 27,000 bookings for the Alza, and with the factory working hard to keep up with demand, 16,000 units have already been delivered to waiting customers.
Indeed, Perodua’s factory in Rawang has stepped up a gear, as it rolled out 49,725 cars off its lines in the first quarter of 2010, a 31.3% jump from 37,867 units from the corresponding period of 2009. These production figures also include the Toyota Avanza. Currently, Perodua has expanded the factory to accomodate an annual output of 250,000 cars at full capacity, though the actual rate of output now reads 190,000 cars per annum.
“Based on the momentum of the first quarter and the traditionally strong demand in the second quarter, we foresee that we will most likely meet our sales target of 176,000 units by year end. If the opportunity arises, we hope to sell more than this target,” Aminar noted.
His optimism is backed by figures showing that in Q1 2010, Perodua sold a total of 47,751 cars, a substantial 24.5% increase from 38,400 in Q1 2009. In the same period, a total of 57,188 new bookings were received from customers.
Speaking on the company’s plans for the year, Aminar noted that there will be no new models coming out from Perodua this year, especially with the Alza still in its infancy. Plans are currently afoot to build a new RM20 million spare parts warehouse at an unconfirmed location to either replace or supplement the existing 8,700m2 warehouse at Sg Choh.
Currently, Perodua continues to run the rear seat belt programme to have rear seat belts installed in some 520,000 Perodua cars by December 2011. The programme, for which Perodua is forking out RM64 million, has thus far retrofitted seat belts for 190,000 cars. Aminar noted with concern that the number of owners coming in for the programme has been on the decline, and urged affected owners not to delay installation of their seat belts for too long.
In recent years, detractors of Perodua have accused the company of being either a ‘rebadging’ company or a Japanese-owned company. In response, Aminar noted that while technical partner Daihatsu controls the plant, Perodua’s net equity remains under Malaysian control and that the company’s R&D facilities are manned primarily by Malaysians.
