Ahead of the launch of the new 2016 Proton Persona in a week’s time, Malaysia Automotive Institute (MAI) CEO Madani Sahari has released a statement regarding his outlook on the national carmaker’s turnaround. In it, he expressed optimism towards the company’s sustainability as a global business, saying that it first demonstrated its “refined business model” with the launch of the new Proton Perdana in June.
“It was a model that was engineered by Proton’s research & development team based on a shared platform with a global car manufacturer. As the result, an elegant D-segment model that was based on profitable business modus operandi,” he said.
He added that he has driven the upcoming Persona and Saga, which he said impressed him with the overall driving experience, in particular the handling, cabin comfort and low vibration and harshness levels. “In a way, the new models seem to mirror the personalities of the two gentlemen at Proton’s helm, Datuk Fuuad Kenali and Datuk Radzaif Mohamed – open minded and attentive, yet decisive and goal-oriented,” he said.
Madani admitted that Proton’s consistency in quality could be improved, but said that its recent models showed no compromise in terms of occupant safety and consistently scored highly in new car assessment programmes. He also said that its cars are among the best in their respective classes in terms of ride and handling.
Additionally, Madani said that as part of the RM1.5 billion soft loan extended to Proton, the government will be there to assist the company through its special task force, ensuring that its manufacturing, aftersales, branding and marketing will “propel the carmaker to the desired heights at the global stage.”
However, he also noted that despite the government’s assistance, it was Proton that planned, decided and implement all activities within its transformation phase. “Based on the outcomes of the last few months, I remain confident that Proton has the mettle to become a competitive player in the global automotive market.”
Madani said that Proton has been making headlines almost every week for the right reasons, not just because of upcoming cars like the Persona and Saga, but also its renewed business direction. “Despite being a mixture of truth and speculation, it is a sign that many Malaysians are still interested in Proton’s future – and for many, would like to predict its future as a success,” he said.
“All I have left to say is – it is time to feel excited about the future of Proton and the automotive industry.” Do you agree with what Madani Sahari has said about Proton? Sound off in the comments section after the jump.
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Hurm..Renault maybe?
Talk is cheap and easy. Talk of going to the moon is easy too… Proton management must put in action … not bulan bulan gaji buta sampai DRBHICOM muflis
As i said, Proton is at international level being ‘BMW and Volvo of Asia’. Unlike Toyota which is still using dinosaur timing chain engine, Proton is using advanced timing belt with the letter VVT like Perodua. Sadly, safety doesn’t sell in MY, so we sold it in Sg and we’re more than happy to sell 1 car than to the millions of ungrateful Malaysians.
Buy Persona from me and i will gip u free service. I can even service u like how i service Najib. Support Proton means u support our Gov and the use of our RM1.5B
Proton syarikat syok sendiri. sendiri buat kereta. Sendiri hype syok sendiri. kata kereta nasional jual harga macam harga toyota/honda brand. I assumed proton will lost suffer and bankrupt. Dan aku rasa sapa yang beli kereta proton ni mesti bodoh. malu tengok orang bawa proton. dah lah hodoh, mahal. puki proton.
good night proton
#protonmalaysiahistory#bankruptjelah
bahasa encik amat memalukan rakyat malaysia..berfikir sebelum memberi ulasan…berapa ramai orang disekeliling encik saudara dan rakan2 yg menguna kereta proton..adakah mereka bodoh seprti yg encik fikirkan?
You think Proton drivers are happy with their Proton? Think again!
Ppl use Proton because they have no money to change car, the saving regularly have to pay for tow truck and break-down repair. Those who manage to escape this cycle won’t dare to touch Proton anymore. That’s why Proton sales sucks.
Why do say all these words…are you ok? I owned a proton suprima and love every moment of driving it. This is my first proton car. Have been using conti, jap, Korean , and Perodua.
ooh you lick it clean and shiny. Do you know that if you buy Proton, you also support breast cancer and world blind organisation?
Geely China is the perfect partner for Proton.
Typical Proton 5S lifestyle:
1. Sendiri Cakap
2. Sendiri Syok
3. Sentiasa Rosak
4. Selalu Discount
5. Siapa pun tak beli
Why do you always say the dumbest shit here?
Yes. Proton can be competitive in global market. But no Campro Engine plus CVT bising gearbox in all proton model please!
In the past, Proton has failed all over the world in every market. Even now, Proton is hiding the Chile figures. Why so secretive Proton?
Proton is famous for wasting their money. Like in Singapore. Last year, they sold a grand total of 1 Proton. Yes, satu sahaja. But they maintain a fancy showroom and pay the abangs abangs high expat pay. Cost to maintain the abangs abangs and the showroom run into the RM millions. The single car Proton sold maybe Profit RM1000.
Come on Proton, don’t waste our RM1.5 billion ringgit. This Madani syiok sendiri and like to talk big but until today he still has not sorted out 2 main issues
1) AP Crony practice. How come 30 people are making billions each and 30 million people suffer with high car prices.
2) 90% of AP holders clock down high mileage cars that have clocked over 200k KM to 5000KM and sell it to Malaysians as new cars.
that one car was not sold to any customer. it is a test drive unit.
That one car is a deathtrap to maintain Proton’s showroom in Sg
Singapore jual satu Proton tu Contractor Kroni yg Beli..
Contractor Renovation yg berjaya..
Smart Singaporean gets it…. May be not
Pua Chu Kang, is it
Dont waste your time, dont wast my time…..
We both know P1 aint have a killer car, killer sales attitude, customer oriented, improvement culture….
they only have talk cock sleep sleep sleep culture…..ZZZZzzzzzz……
This guy have no credibility at ALL…
Again sendiri cakap sendiri siok!
Can Madani come here clean and tell us what car he drives and what car his wife drives? I hear they don’t even own a Proton. And yet, Madani acts like a spokesperson for Proton.
Like someone said below, MAI acts like a subsidiary of Proton
Totally agree, MAI CEO just come out every year say something “will be/ going to be/ would be” then take salary monthly as a CEO !!! Wondering why Rakyat still listen to him???
It’s like how they listen to me, i say Proton very good they also belip mah
We should wish him good luck and hope he can keep his job at Proton another 5 year down the road..
competitive global player?!!! tell me if you will buy a proton if the price close to a Toyota/Honda
The best part, not even a single Minister, Deputy or Madani himself got a Proton at home. In their houses, got BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari and so on.
Such a hippocrate.
Too early to say anything yet. Just bring the new models to market and see how it performs.
Global? Syok Sendiri Global
Go and fly permaidani la
How cars you guys sold in Chile?
For that matter how many Perdanas have you guys sold?
Global player?
maybe after another $15Billion loan from tabung haji
Hopefully Proton Preve can become the No.1 car in Bangladesh.
In Malaysia now, Proton Wiras are no 1 Bangladeshi cars. All Bangladeshi people like to buy it, mainly to use to potong rumput. Just like Hyundai Sonata (old version) is No 1 car for Africans in Malaysia.
Sendiri talk sendiri shiok is their culture. Some big firm sleeping during working hours also their culture.
As long as Proton have proper MPV lineup. They can try to penetrate to other countries especially Thai & Indonesia. About quality they have to create an online user base where the Proton team with the Proton owners having a forum to overcome certain issues that the owners face. This is important for both the owners and Proton as Proton can improve future products and next batch of production. Meanwhile the owner get quality vehicle and flying color after sales service. Plus, Proton gain some knowledge of what the owners really want for their future car or special/limited edition cars.
Proton Triton rebadge maybe good for Thailand market. Also Proton Prevek Arena pickup surely okay for Australian folks.
it wont be easy to penetrate indonesia MPV market and thailand pick-up market.
toyota simple and reliable MPV of avanza and innova are unbeatable there. if you dont believe, try driving a 3 years old exora turbo and then compare to 3 yrs old innova.
for thailand, until proton has its own proper turbodiesel engine.. it cant do anything but watch.
Proton can always talk big to be a global player. In Malaysia, we should trust what our minister says
Soft loan – feel confident now.
near bankrupt – Market is too tough now. Need supports and helps. Re-position the brand.
Soft loan v2 – Sure we can do it.
near bankrupt – Too competitive, making car for rakyat, not for money, very low margin in profit.
Soft loan v3 … … …
… … …
… … …
… … …
… … …
lay down version of 8.
Not unless they put their new engines in production by the end of this year.
I actually agree with this guy, the Perdana (which was kind of impressive at best in terms of features) excelled in the design side. Seriously, say all you want about the brand but the Perdana is drop dead gorgeous and it’s road presence is admirable. The persona already looks promising, the saga is a much better upgrade over the ageing FLX. Now proton just needs to add a few more soft touch materials here and there in the cabin, sort out their body-rim size ratio and go international!
fake unpainted exhaust in fake diffuser and u call it competitive…?
u must be out of your mind….
and that punch CVT gearbox is a pain to use…..
i bet it is not the decision of proton engineers rather than the ppl high up in DRB, DRB is kedekut company that wants all d anak2 syarikat to buy from each other and always looking for cheapest options and sacrificing quality….
Be a competitive global player with perdana, persona n saga? U must be joking. Try to establish urself in Msia first with those models. Even the 1.5b loan is to payoff debts. Clear the crap first than only talk about progress.
Proton globally competitive? HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
(still laughing)…
(still)
(still)
mehh, people still not going to buy any p1 stuff anymore..even their quality is already on top notch.. coz guess what? ABP-ans everywhere..
Same old CEO style of bullshitting. Boring……In the end, it is the comment from the customer in particular and Malaysian in general that’s count and your survivability depends on it.
Can be, could be, would be, should be
But didn’t.
Proton can never fail, it’s too big, too connected to fail. But will it succeed I’m skeptical, I don’t see the potential in the Perdana the way Madani sees(than again I don’t see anything the way Madani sees), the Persona and especially the Saga may have the potential, but take it abroad big markets and I struggle to find a positive point, countries where car ownership is cheaper than water, and proton needs this international market to survive , they know this since their inception yet 30 years on they still haven’t lay any serious effort and I honesty doubt they will the next 30years.
I believe Aero will have positive things to say, but as far as international competitiveness is concern it will take a huge miracle for it.
Go global ah. If Proton is so good they should be able to survive with no car import tax in Malaysia. But no. They definitely cannot survive without “protection”. Some more syok sendiri want to go global. Play fair in Malaysia first la. If can survive then only dream of being global. But most likely. Even with another 10 more soft loans, still cannot go global. Copy and paste technique won’t work in other countries.
We even copy & paste Bezza’s marketing technique. Proton’s marketing team impressive ah?
learn from the days of rebadging mitsubishi lancer as proton wira… similar platform, powertrain and suspension set up as Proton Wira sedan, aeroback, satria, putra and arena.
you did the wrong thing when creating Waja, gen2 and Satria neo as a separate model altogether. who decided that? sacked him. sack the designer too.
World is waiting for Proton cars..haha
Total disagreed, Proton is a failure and remain to be failure forever until it close down.
“it is a sign that many Malaysians are still interested in Proton’s future”, I’m only interested to know when Proton will close shop.
hahahahahaHahahahahahahahahahahaha
While I do hope Proton become a competitive global player, given the little to non-existent indicators that Proton is getting better made me worried about Madani’s comment. I want to smoke what he’s smoking. must be very fun.
On a serious note ‘can’ and ‘will’ are 2 separate matters. Proton, I do hope you do better this time, simply because you must repay the loan. RM 1.5B is better to be spent on infrastructure for the people instead. Defaulting the loan is akin of robbing the people. It’s the govt’s money, not any crooked banks money.
Madani? Can’t even answer radio interview correctly. Constantly dodging question. Can you trust him?
Beat Perodua first in the home market, then we talk about ASEAN. After u conquer ASEAN, then we talk about the Pacific / Aus region. If you can pull that off, then we talk about global.
And pls screw ur door panel right and tight in the Preve, so that ppl won’t be pulling a bend plastic handle when closing the door, also, don’t forget the pooping out rubber seal in the Iriz dashboard and the big lower dashboard gap in the Suprima. Go learn from Nissan, Toyota and Honda on how to assemble a driving compartnent without all these awful misalignment, it robs ppl’s confidence towards ur product’s QC. Get these little things done right first, don’t be syiok sendiri.
I’m looking for enhanced IRIS that can perform like Suzuki Swift sport 1.6 L with NA engine since they already in partership with Suzuki. I’ll name it IRIS Sport.. machine impossible
i suspect in next few weeks there will be sudden suspension of trading on bursa followed by shock announcement of total sale of proton by DRB to private entity
Won’t be surprised at all if it happens.
Interesting prospect. I can certainly imagine someone paying RM1Billion, IF the RM1.5Billion from the government is still there. Business, crony style as its best!
Perdana only limit buy Honday to sell 7K unit and said that is profitable modus operanti?
this guy know what is cost of production? with limited revenue due to limited output, whats left?
the problem of bolehland is engage none-qualify and useless people as leader..as long as loyal..idiot also nvm..
one car profit 30k… if 7k sold means RM210 million revenue (net profit).
dont know how much honda asking as royalty though.
hahahahaaha , no need go for global market my dear fren Madani Sahari , go for local market first , get back rakyat Malaysia trusted about Proton car then baru cerita go for global , wake up from from day dreaming
This clown doesn’t realize he made himself a laughing-stock of the automotive industries. MAI under him looks more like a Proton subsidiary than a government agency. He does nothing than ‘bodek’, ‘bodek’ and ‘bodek. To say that Hondana was based on a profitable business modus operandi is to insult the rakyat’s intelligence and a glaring syiok sendiri talk. And to give all the credits to the two men who are only at the top of Proton recently, this alone is enough for him to be given the title of ‘King of Pengampu’
Get someone from outside who are international known in the industry. All Malaysian CEO have failed. Looking at him you know he has that clueless kinda face. If MAS can get someone outside why not P1? You are already terdesak like MAS. Or you waiting for time to chop of workers to look for it. Bear in mind MAS is service industry which can turn around it product quality very fast, but not you. P1 need leader not talker.
DS Syed Zainal was doing great job but they can him.
As for MAS the Mat Saleh did not do anything. After removing out 6000 staff, now they are active in recruite to cover up their mistake.
Yes, agree, bring back Syed Zainal. Satria Neo, Persona, Exora and to a lesser extend, Preve were produced during his helm, these are the cars people wants, not some syiok sendiri managnent wants.
ini buah kaki kong kaki song
how many latest generation’s proton perdana have you seen on the road? How not to be excited about proton’s future??
Madani datang lagi dengan bodohan dia.
Perodua also cannot fight, ada hati wanna become global player. Poi.
I see I see, so Madani’s job is to mislead foreign potential investors that doesn’t read PT.org to purchase the overvalued shares from P1. So much for gov has nothing to do with P1 anymore.
He should change his name to Sudahlani.
Launch ur product and see how it sells.. then u can talk..
You can only be competitive if you deliver what you promise. Perodua is more honest and deliver ONLY what they promise (the don’t really promise much in the first place). The product should be made right from the get go. Consumers don’t want good ride & handling but poor ergonomics or build quality (just as an example). Nice seats but ugly steering wheel (the ugliness of the gear lever and handbrake lever in the pictures are glaring though IMHO, but I can maybe just live with them). I don’t want excellent AC cooling but crappy AC vents. And don’t even use the 5-years warranty as an excuse for failing parts. Nobody enjoys claiming warranties unless you get money doing it. The last time I bought a Proton car, all four doors produce different sounds when shut on the day I collected it from Proton Edar showroom. Hoping to not experience those kinds of things anymore.
Looking forward to getting one for the family but will be playing a waiting game just to make sure that the product really2 delivers. If not, I don’t mind paying extra for the new Civic.
The thing is, people just want the peace of mind and Proton should deliver as promised.
p/s no fake exhaust pipes or any other fake thing for that matter and please do away with the pvc meshed floor mats and put in a proper carpet.
This Madani super shoik sendiri (SSS), last time, now and possibly in the future.
Proton have not even worked towards being able to be accepted by Malaysians and you are talking about global. Stop the bodekla…
serious Proton, after more than 30 years u people still talking about Proton being a competitive global player.. yet nothing comes real!
the weed in the management is damn strong in Proton!