Photo: Proton
Malaysian automaker Proton, a brand owned by the same people who are in control at Lotus, DRB Hicom, has announced that it wants to more than triple their current annual output of 150,000 cars, by the year 2018. Of those 150,000 units, they only export 20,000, so that`s the area where they need to work the most.
The first market they have targeted is Australia, because the Proton brand is well-viewed there, and the prospect of selling their cars there is a very positive one. Next up will be the Thai market, followed by Indonesia. The basic idea is that they want to end up making and selling 500,000 cars, by 2018, yet it seems that all of them will still be made in Malaysia, as the group also has a small plant in the UK, in Norfolk, where they make 2,000 cars every year, out of a total production capacity of 8,000.
According to DRB Hicom managing director, Datuk Seri Mohd Khamil Jamil, they are “Moving forward, it is going to be challenging, and it will be difficult. Competition is going to get harder and tougher, cost will be higher and this also applies to Proton [ . . . ] We cannot share in detail our plans but we can give glimpses of what we are going to do, and there will be a couple of models that we are going to introduce into the market over the next five years.”
According to DRB Hicom managing director, Datuk Seri Mohd Khamil Jamil, they are “Moving forward, it is going to be challenging, and it will be difficult. Competition is going to get harder and tougher, cost will be higher and this also applies to Proton [ . . . ] We cannot share in detail our plans but we can give glimpses of what we are going to do, and there will be a couple of models that we are going to introduce into the market over the next five years.”
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