Kota Kinabalu, Jan 15- With more affordable vehicles to be launched in the first half of this year, Proton Holdings Bhd is confident of achieving higher sales in 2014, compared with 141,000 vehicles sold last year, said Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer Datuk Lukman Ibrahim.
He said the national carmaker was working on a plan to maximise the features of the present models without compromising on the quality, and to be sold at affordable prices for Malaysians.
“We are trying to make the car more advance in terms of safety and sophistication so that it is valuable to our customers.
“It is not necessary to come out with the new models, but expanding on what we have currently and giving more variants is more important to us,” he told media on the sidelines of the three-day DRB-Hicom “Ke Bawah Bayu” programme, here.
Lukman said the company had previously come out with the new Saga SV and Persona SV and it would continue with the exercise and “it’s just a matter of delivering them at the right time to the market”.
He also said that Proton aimed to give the best after-sales services to its customers.
Recently, Proton had eliminated the 5,000-kilometre (km) service as it said a new car can actually last until 10,000km.
“Having customers with the right maintenance mentality is more important, and we want to continue educating them and not overcharge them for something that is unnecessary,” he added.
He also said that Proton would come up with a campaign, covering states like Melaka, Pahang, Penang, Sabah and Sarawak, to promote its affordable cars, besides giving good financing packages on parts and so on.
The promotion will also include Lotus.
Meanwhile, commenting on the speculation that it had received a RM200 million grant from the government for its research and development (R&D) programme, Lukman said that Proton had never received that kind of amount.
“Proton is the only original equipment manufacturer (OEM) that has a R&D centre in the country and we have been receiving some grant from the government for many years but it never reached that amount,” he said.
He said the company spent more than that amount using its internal funds for the research facility, products and even to train the staff.
– Bernama
