At the appointment ceremony welcoming Suzuki Malaysia dealers into the Proton Edar fold, the collaboration between Proton and Suzuki has also been detailed, with the confirmation that a jointly-developed new model is expected to head into production before the end of the year.
“Today, I am happy to announce that the collaboration is seeing the first of many exciting milestones and providing Proton with the advantage of additional dealers, vendors, skilled manpower, platform sharing and technology know-how,” said Proton CEO Datuk Abdul Harith Abdullah.
Suzuki has already ceased sales of its vehicles, as well as production at DRB Hicom’s plant in Pekan. In addition, the national carmaker says that it has access to Suzuki’s talents, models, platforms, powertrains and other technology.
Suzuki will also provide specific technical assistance for the joint products while taking advantage of Proton’s larger distribution and service network for its “rebranded cars” – the plurality of the term suggests that there will be more than one model to come from the venture.
Proton also claims that Suzuki’s technology and expertise with smaller engines in the A and B segments will complement its long-term product plan. The collaboration will also give Proton the opportunity to leverage on Suzuki’s strengths – maximising volume potentials, reducing development lead time and expediting time to market – through Suzuki’s technology sharing and the ability to reduce cost.
“We are happy that the Malaysian government supports such collaboration as it is also in line with the National Automotive Policy (NAP),” said Datuk Harith. “The collaboration will provide Proton with the opportunity to grow internationally, leveraging on Suzuki’s presence worldwide while Proton continuously develops and produces cars that meet international standards and requirements.
“The collaboration will also see the assimilation of good and best in class practices. As Suzuki exits the Malaysian market, it displays genuine commitment to make this collaboration successful according to the agreed terms. In that, Proton is honoured to be part of its several successful partnerships worldwide and we look forward to a more fruitful journey in our transformation initiatives to increase market share,” he added.
Proton chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad previously announced that the collaboration will involve specifically compact and small cars from Suzuki up to 1.0 litre that are not currently sold in Malaysia, in a segment where Proton is currently not present in. He also confirmed that the Tanjung Malim plant will be utilised in the collaboration.
OK, how many billions we’ve paid Suzuki this time?
If rebadged Suzuki cars still a sales failure, up next Proton masuk meminang kahwin paksa with Nissan, Mazda, Isuzu, Hino, Lexus, Infiniti, Acura, Toyota, Scion, Subaru, Mitsuoka, Datsun and Daihatsu…
Nissan had failed and needed to partner with Renault,
Mazda had failed and needed to partner with Ford,
Isuzu not even have eye to see,
Hino had failed and needed to partner with Toyota,
Subaru had failed and needed bailout by Toyota,
Daihatsu had failed and needed to partner with Toyota.
Your titik?
Proton need to buy engine and gearbox from Toyota/Perodua Umw.
if proton really brought in this car.. i would ask many of you to consider buying it.. this car is the most fuel efficient in asia.. best selling car in some of asian country.. won most of award urban/city fuel efficient car.. daihatsu engine also good but alot of problem in their electronic software…
good car – good engine (if the proton engineer not put any finger on the engine)
problem is – their brakes and air bag.. that all..
my comment is for the car – nothing else..
uncle siliau
Tipu lah. Low sales in Thailand way behind Toyota Yaris Eco 1.2L and Mitsubishi Mirage.
Bla bla bla…..
Bila nak maju ni woiiii???
Balik2 tiru Jepun, then tiru Korea, safe bet tiru Jerman……apa ini dey???
Jangan la jadi pemalas sangat!!!! Msians started producing own car from Waja onwards…..then apa jadi???
So can Proton fire all their designer team now since they use all Suzuki models.
is Suzuki that beauty ? nope. I only love Swift exterior, swift interior just mehhhh.
Proton… please make safer,affordable,quality with good handling.
safer,affordable,quality with good handling = $$$, more $$$$, more more $$$$$.
new model launching Proton Swift
Swift is B segment, Proton already have. Next launching will be Proton Alto, hahaha
how about Lapin?
Model that not sold in Malaysia, hopefully its a Wagon R. Kenari used to be so popular here and I dont see why the Wagon R cant succeed with similar body style. For A segment the latest JDM Alto is a wise choice. Even better if they can get the 660cc turbo.
You see Proton is actually a good concept. But when Mahathir created Proton, he made sure every single part of the Proton car is supplied by his crony buddies.
And these crony buddies overcharge Proton by ten times whilst giving poor and inferior parts. That is why your Proton always falls apart and everybody blames quality control. That is the reason also why Proton makes only RM500 per car that they sell. It is solely because of the crony vendors who are overcharging Proton. For example, per car Mat is sold to Proton for RM100 whilst you can buy the same car mat from brothers for RM10.
So, Mahathir can say all he wants about quality being raised and his sarcasm about Gomen not supporting it, but until ALL Proton’s vendors are changed, how can the quality go up?
Mahathir won’t do this. All his buddies have got the contract to be vendors to Proton. Mahathir will just ensure that all the vendors for Proton remain the same. All his buddies and relatives, so why upset his relatives when he can continue his past misgivings?
Proton will still get the same low inferior quality parts it has been getting for the past 30 years and it will still be overcharged by 10 times for each part the vendors supply.
Malaysians have already suffered so much. For 30 years, 30 million people suffer so much. We struggle paying for our high car prices all because of one man’s dream of benefitting his buddies and friends. Until Proton changes ALL their vendors, Proton will be a loss making organisation because it produces super low quality cars due to its vendors supplying Proton Super low Quality parts.
Shut up and take all the wayang away.
“We are happy that the Malaysian government supports”
Some says Proton no more work with Government??? What Ah Beng liar say about this…
UMW n P2 also get G supports, sohai
Go back to previous Ah Beng comments, Bangsat that says “no more government support” and pantat like you don’t simply comment for him.
They simply meant they were thankful that Najib allowed this JV to happen. In all possibilities, this could mean some share swap between Suzuki and P1. Some countries (ie USA & EU) dun allow this happen due to “conflict of interest” & “stifle competition” , yet allowed their homegrown brand, like VW, to grow into an automotive behemoth.
Lg teruk dr p2… mula2 rebadge mitsu, lepas tu honda, sekarang suzuki… semua brand dia mahu. Tutup kedai tarak mahu. Itu 3 kompeni mahu sikit untung, p1 mahu untung, yg jd mangsa sapa? Utk fanboys, kalau betul produk p1 bagus knp rebadge produk org?
brace yourself,samelorr comment are coming!!
Haish…. Rebadge again? as suzuki exit the market? As Tun get more money while we pay for proton? Puja lagi puja…
Bila mau berdiri sendiri ? Hyundai dah bole?? Proton bila lagi?
bila proton cakap nak rebadge suzuki? read and gather information like an automotive enthusiast. this is an automotive site. rebadge and platform sharing also dont know how to differentiate ka? or just plain blinded by politic that even Jupiter can be spoke with political accents?
bukan dulu proton already said they wont rebadge suzuki but instead use their technology to produce an entirely new vehicle ka?
Is not about Proton can’t, actually Malaysian can’t. Berdiri sendiri everybody can, berdikari not everybody can do that especially MOST Malaysian cannot!!!
Tat means hundreds of millions wasted on the Iriz (a car in the same segment and supposely game changer developed in house by Prodon)..after wasting billions? On such epic pojek they now announcing tis rebadge projek?? Why they didnt do tat in the 1st place and save all the money on the Iriz?? The most amazing thing is all the management team pobably still sitting receiving fat bonuses fat paychecks..bravo
Simply because they thougt iriz should be game changer for them. When they realize the design of iriz that bad,million of invesment has gone. But still…their chief designer go to works like nothing happen.still receive his fat paycheck. Memalukan betul
Susuki Swiss owners sure pissed off…welcome to the club, say Mitsubisi Laser and Honda Accord buyers
yes sure! dis aria butt juzt like swift! damn! hate it!
This is a good news for those who want to buy a cheap and reliable car than Perodua
You 100% sure Proton going to use suzuki engine and transmission in coming models? Then yes cheap and realible BUT remind louse Campro and “punch” CVT that abuse buyers !!!
pls… rebadge Jimny immediately!
Losers and losers…. they produce the failed IRIZ and now they want ti make this ugly car.. Proton never learn not to enter this segment. they will never win.. ego, unprofessional and bad management will result in another epic failure.
they are talking about A segment. why include Iriz? side note, Iriz isnt that much of a failure. there’s plenty here where i live. subjective to your place of course.
Iriz sales more than Altis, dun simply said failure
If altis sell at iriz price…
SO.. with all this happening… can still almost guarantee P1 sales will continue to tumble… P1 create iriz as game changer but horribly slow to export until the design becomes outdated. They’re too slow to update the outdated Persona… P1 blame others when they can’t break into export market…
I saw positive things when DSZ wuz in charge… don’t see it in this current mgmt. P1 think its efforts are gonna help them… no way… coz we the people don’t trust TunM or DRB P1 anymore…
DSZ from P2 bring down P1, top mgt so stupid bring DSZ in P1.
So by end of the year we can expect the line up cars to be like Proton Alto, Proton Saga3, Proton Iriz, Proton Persona, Proton Exora, Proton Perdana. Suzuki sure is OK one… As long as Proton keeps paying royalties. No problem..
So Suzuki wants to do what Daihatsu is doing now? I hope it’s worth it, the Swift is well received by Malaysians and will be sorely missed. We’ll see if a Proton Tangkas will get the same welcome.
One the other hand, not many will miss the SX4, Alto and Kizashi. Selling it as a Proton might even boost its sales.
Cayalah Proton…
Is this going the route of the successful Maruti-Suzuki JV in India? If it is, then consider our Malaysian market which were very small, with products already overlapped with the breadth of offerings from Proton across A-B-C-D-MPV segments (save for the Celerio of course).
Suzuki had already strong presence in ASEAN. What remains to be seen is how can they utilize the JV to maximize exports coming from Malaysia, rather than Indon & Thailand.
Example of popular product lineup:
THailand: Ciaz, Celerio, Vitara
Indonesia: Ertiga, Swift, Splash, APV, Karimun Wagon
Any news that Suzuki terminate or reduce capacity manufacturing arrangement with their Indon & Thai partners? If not, I don’t see the Proton-Suzuki JV as something that is competitive; at least at the ASEAN level.
See what Daihatsu is doing in Thailand and Indonesia, that’ll mirror what Suzuki is trying to do.
Considering the upcoming Saga (reskinned), Persona (reengineered Iriz) and Perdana, surely we can’t expect the ever-tempting Ciaz and Kizashi to reach our shores Proton-badged. The only gap is on the compact MPV and compact SUV segment, the Ertiga and Grand Vitara. But both were already old and due for replacement I supposed. Others may quote off-road Jimny or other JDM Kei or WGN models, which I think are not well-received in this region. For sure, the target must be for export market, and of course India is not in the list (Maruti-Suzuki). Suzuki had to cease manufacturing operations with their Thai & Indo counterparts to squeeze the most from this JV & to maximize Tg Malim plant utilization, or else it doesn’t look that cost competitive regionally.
Once upon a time, there were four competing shopkeepers in a village; Mr. Mitsubishi, Mr. Honda, Mr. Suzuki and En. Proton.
For the longest time, En. Proton dominated the minimart business in the village. The other shopkeepers had varying levels of success but never came close to denting En. Proton’s market share. However, over the years, En. Proton had many affairs and it was costing him time, money and focus for his business. The other shops began to catch up and soon gave En. Proton some serious competition.
Desperate to protect his business as his competitors offer more appealing products to customers, he decided to do secret deals with the competitors.
He went to Mr. Mitsubishi and negotiated to buy over and repack his existing muffins with the condition that Mr. Mitsubishi ceases to sell those muffins. They agreed. After some time, En. Proton decided to stop selling the repacked unpopular muffins, while Mr. Mitsubishi is doing better sales selling biscuits and long breads.
Then En. Proton went to Mr. Honda to do the same thing by negotiating to buy and sell fresh milk. But Mr. Honda is smart, he only sold expired milk to En. Proton. En. Proton decided to take a shortcut and past a different brand on the existing logos and sold the milk exclusively to only the village idiots, while he takes 2 years to develop the expired milk into yogurt drinks.
Frustrated, he now decides to eliminate a competitor in Mr. Suzuki by taking over his entire shop and ceases his main product lines. Mr. Suzuki decided to go along with it as he lost interest doing business in the village and decided to concentrate in other villages with the nice payoff from En. Proton.
And they lived happily ever after. The end.
You forgot to add:
Across Mr. Mitsubishi, Mr. Honda, Mr. Suzuki and En. Proton respective shops, was Mr Toyoda’s hypermarket. Now, Mr Toyoda knows he cannot compete in prices due to his excessive profit margins and high overheads to run his hypermarket. So what he did was to advertise and promote kau-kau his super-duper super-expensive Japanese branded & imported milk. Those village pipu got taken by the hype and branding advert, buying Mr Toyoda’s milk at limited promo prices. But because importing from Japan is expensive and he is not in the mood to subsidise, Mr Toyoda worked with his thai slave driver to produce cheap knockoff with 60% melamine content and weaseled his way out to provide safety standards for this milk of his. Then he brought this unsafe milk into the village and silently replaced those genuine Japan imported milk with those thai sourced ones. Pipu who bought those milk started to complain that the taste was not the same and no matter how much they drink, they get thinner everyday and die more easily. But Mr Toyoda dismiss all complaints and still proudly proclaims that it is the same cuz its imported too (but from thai). Once his stock of Japan milk has finished, Mr Toyoda facelifted his milk with new and improved packaging but kept the contents the same. Each time the village pipu grumble, he does another re-packaging but still kept the same content. Until a time he cannot tahan when some village pipu still dun buy his BS, so he sends his baruts SL, GA & Bertie to “re-educate” those whose still are not convinced of Mr Toyoda’s spin. At the same time, those pipu who was brainwashed by Mr Toyoda starts to bash and heckle their village mates that condemn Mr Toyoda. In the end, Mr Toyoda gets fatter and fatter while the village pipu gets thinner and thinner, and die of one by one.
Mr Toyoda winliaolor and lived happily ever after in his castle overlooking the now zombie village. The End.
Proton just don’t get it? Don’t they?
The problem with Proton is never about how many outlets or models it produces, it’s all about QUALITY.
Iriz, Preve and Suprima are decent cars, they are the best with what our domestic engineering capacity can offer. I salute our anak watan engineers and technicians behind these efforts. Sadly, the “CRONY DIDAHULUKAN” will ultimately kill Proton!
The problem with Proton is never about its design or technical competency (except in engine department, because the lack of R&D fund hampered them to make something better than the outdated CAMPRO), the biggest problem with Proton is all about its CRONY INFESTED SUPPLY CHAIN that chunks out lousy, nasty and low quality parts that are ultimately fitted in the final product. Hence, the final product is marred with defective issues and reliability problems. This is the TWO main factors that erodes customer’s confidence and the drop of sales to such a sorry state Proton suffers today. To put it more accurately, Proton only manage to garner about 15.7% TIV in domestic market in 2015 (just over 100,000 units), the LOWEST in history which I predicted accurately since the start of 2015. Albeit with the launch of Iriz, my prediction of Proton sales will drop to 15% of the TIV was fervently denied by irrational fanboys who were too indulged in Proton’s fake “game changer” slogan associated with the Iriz. Now I am proven right, what next for them to say?
It seems that Mahathir will never get to the root of the problem, he LOVES his cronies too much until they are deemed “untouchable”. It doesn’t matter which manufacturer Proton choose to go to bed with, Malaysian buyers will continue to shun Proton until Proton finally get its act together to improve its QC and QUALITY.
Go to the showroom and check out the Preve, Proton can’t even get a door panel screwed right and tight after 30 years of making cars. Use your fingers to press on the dashboard and check on those awful gap on the dashboard, doesn’t that tells you something about how awful Proton quality and QC is? Actually, Proton doesn’t need to rebadge Japanese cars, the Iriz, Suprima and Preve are designed and engineered competent enough to compete locally, but the EXECUTION IS A BIG FAILURE. That is the main reason people buy a Myvi over a Iriz even though they know Iriz is a safer and better car. Proton just don’t get it. They just don’t!
All Proton needs to do is to fire all crony suppliers and totally revamp its supply chain and QC. I gotta say this from my heart, I will buy a Suprima if its made of Mazda CKD or Nissan CKD standard, never mind the stupid Punch CVT or the non-efficient CFE turbo. From Tanjong Malim? Well, I rather spend my hard earn cash on something else.
This is only way to save Proton. Minus this out, Proton will continue to slump until its ultimate bankruptcy. I don’t see Suzuki will be able to save Proton. I’ll put my estimation of Proton sales figure in 2016 to just 13% of the TIV, or slightly less than 90,000 units. I wish Proton can prove me wrong. Sadly, judging the way they are heading, I will be proven right again come 2017. Let’s wait and see.
Malaysian at large, still wants to see Proton succeed. It’s just what the management is currently doing is ultimately killing our first national car maker.
Proton do anything also kena bash….
On the one hand I agree that Proton needs to pick up the pieces when it come to quality
but at least we should acknowledge lah they do good work when it comes to safety with airbags, VSC and Hot Press Forming and whatever else
anyway on the SUzuki front I want to see and Alza fighter
actuallY I want to see the Jimny beign rebadged but there is little hope of that happening…. volume so low… or so they say….
just another piece of shit copying other brands cars.
please la… work ur lazy ass create a better car with cheap affordable price instead of doing all this shit to cheat rakyat’s hard earn money. the fxxking proton designer taking our tax payer money but doing nth? seriously this stupid car looks ulgy, i bet the interior also ugly, anyways, proton car exterior interior nvr give us surpirse, only cheapskate view.
I thought Suzuki wanna tutup kedai dy in Malaysia due to low sales..what the hell Broton learn from a company that decided to close? Singh takde paham
Hello MyCC, dah tengah hari, masih minum teh tarik ais dan makan kuih lapis kah??
Abang Proton menggatal lagi mau kawin ampat (skrg baru tiga bini Puan Lancer, Puan Accord, Puan Swift mana ckp)
Rebadge swift and sale it for 45k sure win
I heard mahathir scare because of najib gov want to reduce price of import car, so maybe this is their move. I heard from of my friend which is he work in hotel which is protons’ team member always do their meeting there
i think so also.
bn is going to liberalize the auto sector soon
proton thought their iriz sales would be so wonderful that they dont need tie up
now that the sales are so low, they know they would tutup kedai if taxes of imports are brought down
thats why they faster-faster tie up with suzuki
looks like we can wait not too long for the janji to be ditepati soon
Using pple design & technology and put one harimau logo infront..ini lu punya kerja for 30 years no difference with student copy in exam but using different name..sia suay!!…never ending…
when they say cease sale of suzuki brand…
it can only mean 1 thing…rebranding of suzuki cars imminent
deja vu just like mitsubishi in the old days
Proton + Honda = Pronda (Accordana)
Now
Proton + Suzuki = Prozuki
Hahaha… When can Proton be like Kia or Hyundai?
not yet, atleast the Proton RV is better than the kimchis
LOOKING FOWARD FOR SUZUKI CELERIO