In a speech to the media over lunch, CEO of Proton, Dr. Li Chunrong laid down a marker – to sell 132,000 cars in 2020 , which is around 30,000 units more than 2019’s achievement of 100,821 units, which should further cement Proton’s position as the second best-selling brand after Perodua and strengthen its market share of 16.7%.
In his speech, Dr Li mentioned that the locally assembled X70 will be launched ‘very soon’ and that there will be one more all-new model which he didn’t name but is presumed to be the much speculated X50 based on the Geely Bin Yue B-segment crossover, or Coolray if you’re in the Philippines.
Dr Li also pointed out that the updated Saga is doing well; averaging around 4,200 units per month, even trumping the Perodua Bezza over certain months this year, and that Proton hope to increase that to 5,000 units per month in 2020.
Along with the facelifted Exora, Persona and Iriz, these bread-and-butter models are expected to drive the core volume of Proton, leaving the new X50 (if it is called that) to win over new customers.
Proton also revealed that they have exported 1,017 cars to six countries in 2019 and hope to grow the export volume by four times to 4,000 units over 10 different foreign markets, subject to securing ‘support’ – which we understand to be in the form of government incentives. Dr Li said that with that in hand, this number can even reach 6,000 units.
