PROTON Attributes Lower January Sales To Constricted Supply Chain

For January 2021, PROTON sold 5,964 vehicles, a year-on-year decline of 29.9%. According to the company, the lower sales results is mainly due to a constricted supply chain which affected its production to meet demand. PROTON takes second place in January with a market share estimated at 18.5%, down about 1% from the same period in 2020. Correspondingly, Malaysia’s automotive sales for January was estimated to be slightly above 32,000 units, with a major drop in volume seen by most major players.

“January was a difficult month for Malaysia’s automotive industry. Hopes were high the momentum built at the end of 2020 would be carried forward especially after the announcement of PENJANA incentives remaining in place until the end of June this year. Unfortunately, the second MCO announcement put a damper on those hopes.

“Still, PROTON as well as the rest of the industry is in full support of all measures the government has in place to control the rate of infection. The safety of all Malaysians needs to remain as the main priority and companies need to pivot in order to achieve their goals in a changed market environment,” said Roslan Abdullah, Chief Executive Officer, Proton Edar.

While PROTON’s order book remains healthy with orders carried over from the end of 2020, the company is still working hard for supply to catch up to demand. As an industry that depends on a global supply chain, automotive companies are acutely affected by delays to vendors which have a knock-on effect to their production lines.

In January, the Proton Saga led sales with 2,583 cars delivered. This is followed by the X50 (1,082 units) and Persona (970 units). Sale of the Proton X70 also remains strong for the brand at 892 units. Incidentally, PROTON had delivered a total of 4,809 units of the X50 since its official launch on 27 October 2020.

“Measures like the MCO have naturally affected the number of customers coming to showrooms, but we can receive bookings online helping to boost our sales. However, our supply lines have been disrupted over the last few months by the coronavirus making it difficult to ensure a steady flow of parts needed to build our cars. It’s something all car manufacturers have been facing for the past year but we are hopeful that with the arrival of a vaccine things will stabilise by the middle of the year,” said Roslan Abdullah.

Despite the delays, PROTON intends to pursue its product launch plans for 2021 as the company strives for more sales growth both domestically and abroad.

“For now, PROTON will stick to its 2021 product launch schedule. We have an exciting series of improved products in the pipeline while the Proton X50 will now be able to establish its standing in the market by benefitting from a full year of sales. There will undoubtedly be more challenges ahead until the world is able to control the spread of the virus but we are aware this is now the new norm for doing business and the onus is on us to innovate our operations to better serve our customers,” he added.