After five-year slide, Proton at risk of losing second spot to Honda

(Malay Mail Online) – Proton could face the ignominy of being overtaken by Japanese brand Honda after the national carmaker’s flagging sales in the last five years put it in striking distance, according to figures from the Frost & Sullivan Automotive outlook for 2016.

Once-dominant Proton’s share of the passenger car market is now just 17.7 per cent, down sharply from the 29.6 per cent it commanded in 2011.

Second national carmaker Perodua continues to be the most dominant in the market, and showed an increase to 36 per cent of the market share in 2015.

Honda continued to lead the foreign marques and made further gains in market share, with 15.9 per cent of passenger vehicle sales last year.

The Frost & Sullivan outlook revealed today projected that Malaysia’s car sales will drop for the second year running in 2016.

However, while the passenger vehicle category showed a marked decline, the outlook found that more Malaysians are buying sports utility vehicles (SUV) and pick-up trucks compared to regular mid-sized sedans.

“This is because, they find that for the price, the SUVs and pick-ups offer much more features than a C class car,” Frost & Sullivan vice president for mobility, Vivek Vaidya, said during the outlook briefing today.

He also said that the luxury vehicle segment saw an increase despite the overall drop in the sale figures.

“The luxury vehicle segment saw an 18 per cent increase,” he said.

However, Vivek said this was not surprising despite Malaysia’s economic slowdown as the luxury car segment across the world do not normally follow the downward trend of national economies.

“You are talking about a different segment of consumers. They are not affected by the economic slowdown or the performance of the ringgit, or GST,” he said.