New Saga is the Best Selling Malaysian Small Car - But Not by Much

Based on the data on car sales published by the Malaysian Automotive Association for June 2010, Proton's New Saga is the best selling Malaysian car. Among the reasons why this is so is Proton's smart pricing placement, beginning with the slightly under RM40,000 baseline New Saga models.

This, in a way, justifies Proton's decision to not bother putting in additional safety features into the New Saga, like anti-brake locking system (ABS) with electronic brake-force distribution (EBD) and curtain air-bags.

Also, time and again, data shows that motorists tend to prefer sedans over hatchbacks, most likely because of the extra boot space sedans provide. For June 2010, as many as 6,649 New Sagas were sold, whereas only 6,495 Perodua MyVis were sold for the same period.

However, the fact that the New Saga managed to outsell the MyVi by only 154 units goes to show that smartly pricing a sedan like the New Saga cannot be relied on too heavily. It could be that many car buyers still consider MyVis as offering better quality and come with better after-sale service. If this were true, then it shows Proton as continuing to suffer from the problem of poor quality image (imagined or otherwise).

This could be the reason why Perodua's Alza outsold Proton's Exora by 721 units for June 2010, which is far more than the figure for the New Saga outselling the MyVi - the Alza is smaller than the Exora but cheaper.

There is really nothing more Proton can do about its poor quality image problem other than to continue producing good cars and providing good after-sale services. What it can do to make the New Saga sell even better, apart from introducing the SE variant, is to introduce New Saga variants that come with ABS with EBD, and even those that come with curtain airbags. This would help Proton expand the New Saga's market share in the small car segment for Malaysia, which is currently dominated by Perodua.

Yes, Malaysians in general don't mind going without ABS or EBD, as the June 2010 figures show. But now that Proton's New Saga is leading in that segment of the small car market, Proton should really look into getting a chunk out of the small-car-equipped-with-ABS segment where MyVis and Vivas dominate.