PERODUA

*Perodua to undertake rebranding exercise* PERUSAHAAN Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd (Perodua), Malaysia's top carmaker, intends to maintain its lead in the domestic market for the third year in a row by pushing up sales, introducing at least one improved model and rebranding the company.
Rebranding will take place this year, aimed at making the company's name more visible.
"For some time and until today, our product brands such as Kancil and MyVi stand out more prominently than our corporate name, Perodua. We intend to change that situation," Perodua managing director Datuk Syed Abdull Hafiz Syed Abu Bakar told Business Times via e-mail.
The rebranding, which will coincide with its 15th anniversary, will begin in June this year and is due to run until next year. Changes will revolve around Perodua's new brand vision and tag line, "Fresh Thinking To Move Malaysia".
"A strong brand is a powerful tool to help us find and keep the best employees. This will help us maintain our leadership position," Syed Abdull Hafiz added.
Perodua dethroned Proton Holdings Bhd as the country's top carmaker in 2005, with an overall share of 40 per cent of the passenger car market.
"Our focus this year is to retain our pole position in the domestic car market for the third consecutive year," said Syed Abdull Hafiz.
Perodua expects a marginal increase of 1.8 per cent in car sales to 165,000 units this year from 162,152 units in 2007, on the back of a highly competitive and saturated domestic car market.
This will account for 32 per cent of the total industry volume, which Perodua projects to grow to 510,000 units, compared with a 33.3 per cent share of the 487,000 units sold in 2007.
Apart from banking on existing models to drive its sales, Perodua has plans to launch a new four-wheel drive Kembara replacement model later this year, with much higher specifications.
Perodua's last put out a new model in May 2007, when it unveiled the Viva, a compact 1.0-litre car that sells from RM28,400. The Viva was Perodua's first new model in two years when it was released.
As at December 2007, Perodua sold some 50,000 units of the Viva and more than 200,000 units of the Myvi.
"Our plan is to launch one new model every year, starting with the MyVi in 2005. However, the strong demand and long waiting period (for MyVi) had temporarily derailed our plans in 2006," said Syed Abdull Hafiz.
"Our plan is now back on track and we are working towards launching a new model each year over the next three years," he said.
Perodua is also expecting an increase in its after-sales business this year. It targets to service 1.3 million Perodua cars this year, up from 1.12million in 2007.
The group's plant in Sg Choh, Rawang, has the capacity to make 240,000 cars per year, which Syed Abdull said will be sufficient to meet the demand up to 2011.
The company also assembles Toyota's Avanza model and the Daihatsu Sirion, meant for the Indonesian market.
On its partnership with Daihatsu Motor Co Ltd and Mitsui & Co Ltd of Japan, Syed Abdull Hafiz said it has "proven that such partnership can work if both parties have mutual respect and trust as well as set out clear goals from the beginning".
On another front, Syed Abdull Hafiz said the challenges for Perodua and other local automotive players include the intense competition in the market, spiralling crude oil prices and volatile foreign exchange.
He said more companies will launch competitively-priced cars. "For Perodua, we will continue to focus on building quality compact cars that are competitively priced," he said, adding that the US economy and its subprime lending crisis, and fear of recession could also affect the domestic car market.
On the positive side, the higher pump prices for fuel could benefit Perodua as car buyers opt for more fuel-efficient and economical car to maintain," said Syed Abdull Hafiz.