PROTON opens their East Malaysia Regional Parts Centre in Kuching Sarawak

On the 27th of February 2023 PROTON announced the official opening of its Regional Parts Centre in Kuching, Sarawak. This is part of Company’s continuous effort to enhance after sales service over in East Malaysia where the newly completed facility can reduce the lead time for parts delivery by at least 30%, thereby allowing PROTON a boost to its after sales service over in East Malaysia. This should allow Proton vehicles to be serviced much faster if there are cases of major repairs or servicing.

PROTON’s new Regional Parts Centre is located at the Bintawa Industrial area and has approximately 28,000sq. ft of floor space. It can receive up to six containers of parts on site simultaneously and is currently processing an average of 17 containers per month. This fully utilises its capability to store up to three months of stock. Additionally, it is also capable of receiving direct shipments from overseas if such a need requires.

“With increasing customer demand over the last four years, PROTON’s previous warehouse facilities in East Malaysia were overflowing with parts and running inefficiently due to space limitations. The new Regional Parts Centre in Kuching is three times larger than its predecessor and will function as a parts distribution centre for after sales parts and components for Sarawak as well as Sabah if the need arises.

“The added space also allows PROTON to increase delivery by 50% from 3,000 orders per month to 4,500 orders per month with a maximum capacity of 6,000 orders per month should it be needed. This allows us to achieve more parts throughput and as of today we are quickly clearing backlogged orders from our dealers and customers,” said Roslan Abdullah, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, PROTON, while hosting a visit to the Regional Parts Centre by Sarawak Proton dealers.

One of the reasons for this is that PROTON wishes to cater to strong demand in East Malaysia with more growth targeted to come.  In 2022, sales of Proton vehicles in East Malaysia accounted for 15% to the company’s total sales volume while market share has grown from 10% in 2018 to 20% in 2022, climbing steadily since 2019 after the introduction of the Proton X70. SUVs sell over in Sabah and Sarawak so with the introduction of the X70 and the X50 SUVs, their market share has indeed improved as they have vehicles that their customers want over there.

The popularity of the new X-series models however is not the only driver of growth as the evergreen Proton Saga remains as the most popular model. Last year, the top three Proton models sold in East Malaysia were the Proton Saga with 10,242 units followed by the Proton X50 with 4,181 and the Proton Persona with 2,605 units, respectively.

“Proton sold 7,697 units in East Malaysia in 2018 but last year, a total of 19,844 units were sold, which is equivalent to sales growth of 158%. We target to achieve bigger numbers this year with the continued improvement in after sales service as well as the launch of new and updated models in the pipeline.

“Customer satisfaction remains our goal, and we know Proton still needs to strive to improve our level of after sales service. Each positive step we take brings us closer to our target, and we remain committed to provide high quality products to go along with a similarly high level of after sales support,” added Roslan Abdullah.