PROTON MAY RAISE PRICES OF ITS CARS IN 2016 DUE TO WEAK RINGGIT

Proton may increase the prices of its cars by January 2016 due to the weakening Ringgit. Now whilst Proton has up to 90% local content for most of its cars, most of the raw material is still imported. Anything made out of steel and aluminium has its raw material imported in as Malaysia does not have enough of these resources locally. So even Proton is affected by the underperforming Ringgit.   

PRESS RELEASE

PROTON REEVALUATES ITS PRICING STRUCTURE FOR 2016


SUBANG JAYA, 8 December 2015 – Due to the weakening Ringgit, PROTON Holdings Berhad

(“PROTON” or “the Company”) is considering to increase prices of its cars, starting January 2016.

“We do feel the impact of the fallen Ringgit as many raw materials are purchased in foreign currency. The

weaker Ringgit affects the company’s operation cost and the entire eco-system chain from the vendors to

us. Hence, we are evaluating our price structure and the percentage of the price increase will depend on

the models,” said Dato’ Abdul Harith Abdullah, Chief Executive Officer of PROTON.

The price increase is seen as an industry situation as prices would need to be raised to compensate for the

effect of the lower Ringgit.

To cushion the impact which has been affecting the Company’s bottomline since August 2015, PROTON

has put more efforts in reducing operational costs and rationalising operations where necessary. Despite

these efforts, the weakening ringgit continues to put pressure on PROTON and is affecting the industry as

a whole.