Proton Malaysia Sales : 2000-2004

In Malaysia, the two local brands of Perodia and Proton have been major players. I did an article way back on the progress of these two brands locally, which can be viewed by clicking here. 

I've found some data which I've sorted to show when Proton was top dog in Malaysia and what they were selling. It's nice to get hold of this sort of thing as older statistics are often harder to find than recent ones. 

In the year 2000, Proton had its market share around the 64% mark. Registrations increased over the next four years but so did competition and and by 2004, its share was at the 44% mark or down 20 percentage points. Sales volume was holding, but the market was growing.

Japanese and Korean brands were starting to have an impact on sales through expanded local production. It was never going to retain the market share it enjoyed in the 20th century. The question was how much would it surrender?

Data Source: Govt of Malaysia. Photo source: Netcarshow. 

The Mitsubishi based compact Saga Iswara was the best selling car, and was sold from 1992. It came with 4-door and hatchback body styles. It was a facelifted model from the original Saga which was released in 1985 as the first nationally produced car and was popular as a taxi. 

The small sized Wira was introduced in 1993, also with 4-door and hatchback model variants. It was based on the Mitsubishi Lancer but with modified styling. In my eyes it was nicely styled for a car going back that many years.

The medium sized Waja was offered only as a saloon car was the first model that was mainly developed by Proton. It was released in the year 2000 and presumably due to its size didn't hit the numbers of the smaller Saga Iswara and Wira.

Just in time for this time period arrived the small Gen-2, offered as a 4-door and hatchback. It was developed by proton with engineering input from Lotus. It looked good and handled well but the interior was not so well executed. 

Other models were the Perdana executive car, released in 1995 and based on the Mitsubishi Eterna. The Satira 3-door hatch back (introduced in 1994) was based on the Mitsubishi Colt/Mirage with Lotus tuned handling. The Juara microvan (2001) and Arena compact pick up (2002) were two new entries for this time. The Putra sports coupe and Tiara small hatch were both on the way out. 

At a future date, another five year period for proton will be discussed.