Proton targets to be top in car sales in Malaysia by 2023 and top in Aean by 2027, says its chief executive officer Li Chunrong.

Since losing its status as the top-selling marque in Malaysia in 2005, Li said sales of Proton even dropped to fourth position last year. However, Proton regained second place in the first half of this year.

Delivering his speech at the Talent Endowment Forum and Fair 2019, Li said the company is looking at making profit as soon as possible.

Li said Proton, which sells 27 models, has recorded accumulated sales of over four million cars sold to 70 countries for the past 36 years.

He said complete-built-up (CBU) cars in Indonesia made up 30 per cent of total car sales, and 100 per cent in Thailand.

Compared to those two countries, Malaysia still has huge room for exporting CBU cars.

Li stressed that in future the automobile industry would have four major trends – online sales by 2025, cars which are automated and operated by smart technology, and the sharing concept.

The negative impact of sharing cars would between five to 10 years see a decline in car sales.

He said when China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group acquired Proton Holdings Bhd to form a new joint-venture company in 2017, the operating team of the company comprised Malaysians, Japanese, Canadians and Chinese.

Compared to the 150,000 staff in China Geely, the Proton team in Malaysia led by him only comprises 10,000 staff.http://https://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/proton-aims-be-top-asean-car-sales-2027