As more and more consumers tend to opt for the bigger MPVs instead of SUVs, they would not want to fall into the losing end if they are to produce locally. The best selling SUV in the market is currently held by Honda with their CR-V of which they only managed to roll out slightly less than 450 units per month last year. Therefore, Perodua projects that they will be moving out about 200 units per months.
As the Managing Director of Perodua, Datuk Syed Abdull Hafiz bin Syed Abu Bakar points out, in times like this, it is not so much about the direction but they have to bring into consideration the return on investment as well. what more with more entry level cars being made available by international car makers entering the market, competition is seen at its highest. If they are not careful at the start, there might be no end. He said that We should not be so hung up on national pride and be forced into doing things which do not make business sense. We will still make high-volume models with high quality and offer them at affordable prices and we will also continue to bring in new technology. Such technology is not just in engines but also in manufacturing and an example is how we have used the latest manufacturing processes to push the defect rate per unit down to 0.2, which is a very big improvement from the time we started.”
