New Proton Regional Parts Centre in Kuching Cuts Lead Time By 30%

Initially announced last year, national carmaker Proton officially inaugurated its new Regional Parts Centre located in Kuching, Sarawak, recently. The centre was established as a means to meet rising demands for the brand and its products in the East Malaysian market.

According to Proton, the 28,000 sq ft facility located in the Bintawa Industrial Area is poised to reduce lead time for parts delivery by 30%. This, in turn, sees the automaker's step-up its assurance of delivering a higher level of after-sales service to customers in East Malaysia.

The new facility is built three times larger than its predecessor, functioning as the regional hub for Proton’s after-sale parts and components distribution. This allows it to serve up to six parts containers on site simultaneously, averaging 17 containers monthly.

Altogether, Proton is fully utilising its new RPC to store up to three months of stock. In addition to that, the new centre is also capable of receiving direct shipments from overseas.

PROTON Deputy CEO Roslan Abdullah said, “With increasing customer demand over the last four years, Proton’s previous warehouse facilities in East Malaysia were overflowing with parts and running inefficiently due to space limitations.”

Roslan adds that the newly opened RPC also allows Proton to increase monthly deliveries in East Malaysia by 50% from 3,000 orders to 4,500 orders, and that the network can now sustain a maximum capacity of 6,000 orders per month when needed.

On a different note, Roslan notes that Proton’s sales in East Malaysia contributed as much as 15% to the company's total sales last year. As for market share, it has grown from 10% in 2018 to 20% in 2022.

"This marks a continuous improvement since 2019 after introducing the Proton X70. The popularity of the new X series model is not the only driver of the company's growth, the Proton Saga which remains the most popular model, is also key to this," he digressed further.

Last year, the three Proton models that topped the sales chart in East Malaysia were the Saga (10,242 units), X50 (4,181 units), and Persona (2,605 units). Compared to 2018 where Proton’s East Malaysia sales totalled just 7,697, things have surged up to 19,844 units in 2022, marking a sales growth of 158%.

“We aim to achieve even bigger numbers this year with continued improvement in after-sales service as well as the launch of several new models,” concluded Roslan.