Proton comments on Japan earthquake
Effects of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that hit Japan on 11 March are still reverberating around the world. The auto industry, which has a huge number of key players hailing from Japan, have been badly affected as well, with almost all major manufacturers closing down plants and calculating massive losses.
Most official franchise holders of Japanese makes in Malaysia quickly issued statements to assure customers that supply of both cars and parts are unaffected in the short term, as they have adequate buffers to last them for periods of time varying between a month to half a year.
In the midst of the crisis, we also contacted Proton, whose Inspira still has nearly 80% Japanese content. Besides the Inspira, other current Proton models such as the Gen.2, Exora and Satria Neo continue to use transmissions supplied by Mitsubishi. Manual versions of the Saga BLM use a different gearbox from Aichi Kikai. The Savvy uses running gear from Renault.
The company yesterday sent us the following statement in response to our query:
“At the moment, we have not seen any immediate impact on our operations and production. Nevertheless, Proton is now closely monitoring all vendors (domestic & overseas) status as some vendors may not be operating in Japan but still source parts from Japan. Proton will continue to assess the total impact of the situation in Japan and will provide the updates on any further development as the situation will become more apparent in the coming months.
Our production planning is based on the short term projection of the demand for our cars. Should there be any supply disruption of parts or components, the situation would remain manageable as we have sufficient stocks and buffer. However, should the disruption in Japan persist in the long term, it could lead to increase in material cost and disruption of supply.
Such a situation could lead to price increase, which we are keen to avoid as it will not be favourable to our customers. Hence, we shall continue to assess the situation to come up with the best long term solutions for our customers which may include getting our supplies from other sources than Japan. But the situation right now is manageable whilst we look forward for Japan to recover fast from this catastrophe.”
