PROTON Holdings Bhd (Proton) continued its upward sales momentum for the fifth consecutive month, recording a sales growth of 20% last month to 11,392 units, compared with the same month last year.

In a statement today, the national carmaker said it started the final quarter of the year strongly but contracted by 4.6% compared with September.

Its total sales for the year now stands at 84,999 units – 6.2% higher than last year and equivalent to an estimated 21.3% of market share.

Proton said three of its models continue to lead their respective market segments, namely Persona, which continues to lead the B-segment sedan market with 2,360 units sold while Proton X70 saw 2,216 units sold for the month, maintaining its lead in the sports utility vehicle (SUV) segment.

Exora also retained its customary position as the best-selling C-segment multi-purpose vehicle (MPV), proving there is still a viable market for large seven-seat people carriers despite the continued growth in SUV sales.

Proton’s distribution arm, Proton Edar chief executive officer Roslan Abdullah said the recovery of Malaysia’s automotive market continued to gather pace, judging by the number of new model launches and total sales in October with the estimated total industry volume to be the second highest this year with more than 57,000 units sold.

“This proves the car industry is rebounding strongly. At Proton, we are thankful for the steady growth in sales, as we have yet again beaten our monthly numbers from the previous year. We could have performed better.

“Looking at the numbers, we noticed a significant drop in sales in Sabah and Sarawak while the central region was static compared with September. Part of this was due to the implementation of the conditional movement-control order, but there was also a sense of customers holding back before the launch of our newest model, the Proton X50,” he said.

Nevertheless, he added that Proton was confident of ending the year well and using the results as a base to aim even higher in 2021. – Bernama, November 2, 2020.