Proton to launch new luxurious sedan to boost sales

Proton to launch new luxurious sedan to boost sales

Eileen NG, Associated Press, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Malaysia's national carmaker Proton will launch a new
luxurious sedan - dubbed the Chancellor - next month that it
hopes will help boost flagging sales, officials said.

The Chancellor will make its debut as an official car to ferry
delegates attending next month's summit of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, Proton chairman Mohammed Azlan
Hashim was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency on Tuesday.

The company is sponsoring the use of 295 Proton cars,
including 40 units of the Chancellor, as official vehicles at the
Dec. 12-14 summit.

Azlan said the Chancellor will be made available to the public
from Dec. 15 at the company's showrooms and at appointed dealers,
but declined to give further details.

"The public release will be next month. We will work out the
pricing depending on the specifications," he said, according to
Bernama.

Proton officials said the Chancellor, which has a 2.0-liter
engine, is designed to be a chauffeur-driven vehicle to meet
requirements of senior government officials, corporate executives
and other VIPs.

The Chancellor, which shares a production platform with the
smaller Waja launched five years ago, is a stretched version of
the Waja model but with more luxurious trimmings, a company
official said Tuesday.

Proton has come under intense pressure to bolster sales as its
market share dwindled to around 30 percent in June from 57
percent in 1993, throwing the company into the red in the quarter
that ended June.

Faced with a shrinking market share and growing foreign
competition as tariffs on imported cars are being eroded as part
of market liberalization, Proton has entered talks to sell an
equity stake to German auto giant Volkswagen AG.

Azman Mokhtar, managing director of state investment firm
Khazanah Nasional that controls Proton, said on Tuesday that
negotiations with Volkswagen were ongoing but "it is quite clear
that we need to form an alliance" for Proton to remain
competitive.

He said Proton is still in the process of selecting a new
chief executive since its former head was ousted in August, but
declined to comment on a report that tipped a senior official in
No. 2 carmaker Perodua as a likely candidate.

The Sun newspaper quoted sources as saying that Perodua's
deputy managing director, Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir,
who has had a previous stint in Proton, will likely fill the top
Proton post left vacant by Mahaleel Ariff.