Perodua Aims To Sell 188,000 Cars This Year Despite Stiff Competition, Says MD

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 20 (Bernama) -- Perodua, which sold 180,000 passenger cars last year, aims to boost sales to 188,000 this year, Managing Director Aminar Rashid Salleh said Friday. He said the local compact car maker has lined up several workable initiatives to realise the target, mainly increasing the number of outlets, emphasising on per outlet productivity, promotional programmes, enhanced products and after-sales services. "Although 2012 will pose a challenging year and barring any unforeseen circumstances, we believe we can meet this target. This year is also expected to be a much more challenging year compared to 2011. "However, the automotive industry is poised for growth as the total industry volume forecast has proved it. "We also aim to boost our exports this year to 10,000 units by further increasing the export volume to the countries that we are currently in. We are also exploring new markets," he told media briefing on Perodua's 2011 results. Last year, the company exported 8,000 cars to its seven export destinations, mainly to the United Kingdom, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Under Perodua's five-year strategic roadmap, Aminar Rashid said the company aims to quantum leap its exports to 20,000 cars by 2015. He said eventhough the 180,000 passenger car sales last year was below its revised 185,000 target, Perodua managed to capture 30 per cent of the total industry volume in 2011 and maintained its No. 1 position among other car companies in sales for the sixth consecutive year. He attributed the lesser sales last year to the tsunami and earthquake in Japan, massive floods in Thailand, the amended Hire Purchase Act and intense competition from competitors whom were coming up with new and exciting car models. "Despite the keen competition, our performance in the market share was backed by strong demand for our new Myvi model, which registered nearly 78,000 sales last year, and strong demand for two other models -- ViVA and Alza," he said. Last year, Perodua sold 81,904 Myvi-variants, 60,675 ViVas and 34,402 Alzas. Aminar Rashid said Perodua also did well in the after-sales service as the second national car company recorded its highest ever intake of 1.71 million vehicles last year. "This translates into 51 per cent of Perodua vehicles currently in operations. "Spare parts sales registered RM205 million last year, which was a new record. in 2010, the sales was around RM178.1 million," he added. (US$1=RM3.10) -- BERNAMA