Proton exports vehicles to South Africa again after 10 years

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Proton exports vehicles to South Africa again after 10 years

Following the signing of the agreement to appoint CMH Group as the distributor for Proton vehicles in South Africa in April, the first shipment of vehicles left Malaysia for the country recently. The vehicles – consisting of the Proton X50, X70 and Saga – were transported to Westport, Klang, and loaded onto the car-carrier bound for Durban in South Africa.

To arrive in South Africa by July, these vehicles are the first batch of Proton vehicles to be exported to market since 2012. “This shipment marks another significant milestone achieved by Proton this year. South Africa is a mature and competitive market, but we are confident the Proton X50, Proton X70 and Proton Saga have the right combination of features and value to compete with other brands there,” said Steven Xu, Proton’s Director of International Sales.

“CMH Group are working diligently to prepare their distribution network and the current plan is to launch our models by the end of the third quarter of this year. Ahead of this, several members of the CMH Group visited Malaysia last week to have discussions with our team and visit dealers as well as the Tanjung Malim plant,” he added.

*One of the export vehicles getting a final check.*

SUVs and local assembly drive export sales
Proton’s export sales growth this year has been powered by the X50 and X70, with both showing increases in demand of 77% and 31%, respectively. For the first quarter of this year, total export sales have grown by 175% over the same period in 2021 and that number is expected to increase by more than 300% by the end of 2022 as the Malaysian carmaker emphasises on growing export sales

Vital to achieving the target is the growth in local assembly operations overseas. Currently, such operations, which receive CKD (completely knocked down) kits for assembly, are running in Pakistan, Kenya and Bangladesh, with Sri Lanka set to join the list in the second half of 2022.

*The X50 abd X70 SUV models have been powering Proton’s export sales.*

Over the last 3 years – despite difficult market conditions caused by COVID-19 – Proton has shown a prominent increase in its percentage of Malaysia’s overall vehicle exports. Its share has risen from 12.8% of total exports in 2019, to 30.2% in 2020 and moved further up to 61.0% in 2021.

“Growth in export sales is vital to Proton being able to achieve its long-term goals. The company will need to explore more new markets to push its volume growth rate and we are making the necessary investments both here at Tanjung Malim and in our overseas operations to ensure we are ready to move quickly to exploit any new opportunities,” said Roslan Abdullah, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Proton.