While most car buyers in East Malaysia looked for manual transmission cars, the entry of Proton Iriz has led the market to migrate into the auto transmission segment which augurs well for the group.
KUCHING: Proton Holdings Bhd (Proton) is confident that Proton Iriz will be a big hit both in Sarawak and Sabah following the group’s entry into the compact car B-segment market last year.
According to Proton Edar Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Norzahid Mohd Zahudi, while most car buyers in East Malaysia looked for manual transmission cars, the entry of Proton Iriz has led the market to migrate into the auto transmission segment which augurs well for the group.
“The Iriz is a fresh perspective of Proton models and it is the segment that we believe will be growing in Sabah and Sarawak.
“The purchasing power for Sabah and Sarawak in East Malaysia has increased and the migration from manual (transmission) to automatic (transmission) is a welcome sign to us,” he said to the media during a Proton Iriz Borneo Media Drive held last week.
According to Norzahid, the number of Proton Irizs sold throughout Malaysia currently stood t about 17,000 orders while deliveries were at about 10,000 units.
For the first batch, Proton has produced the model Iriz 1.6 while manufacturing for the 1.3 manual and auto transmissions started sometime end of December 2014, he added.
Norzahid also told the media present that Proton is targeting a monthly sales of between 3,500 units to 4,500 units a month starting from March this year.
On the upcoming implementation of goods and services tax (GST), Norzahid said that Proton is still studying all possibilities of the impact.
“Economically, there will be impact of course. But, we are studying all possibilities of how we move forward post-GST,” he said, adding that as a conglomerate, Proton and DRB-Hicom have already consulted with consultants on this.
On the journey of the Proton Iriz Borneo Media Drive, he commented that the roads travelled through from Miri-Brunei-Limbang-Kota Kinabalu saw a few challenges in terms of unevenness of the roads and the small city roads.