PETALING JAYA: DRB-Hicom Bhd has guided for flattish vehicle sales in the financial year 2024 (FY24) as it expects subdued sales for less popular brands.
Kenanga Research said it came away from the automotive manufacturer’s first quarter of FY24 results briefing feeling mixed about its near-term prospects.
“DRB-Hicom guided for sales of 160,000 units (up by 3.4% year-on-year (y-o-y) of Proton vehicles and around 80,000 units of Honda vehicles (flattish y-o-y) in 2024.
“Meanwhile, it expects subdued sales for less popular brands such as Mitsubishi and Isuzu due to limited new model offerings. We keep our assumptions of unit sales of 158,000 and 80,000 in FY24 and 166,000 and 80,000 in FY25 for Proton and Honda, respectively,” the research house said in a report recently.
DRB-Hicom will be riding on its parent Zhejiang Geely group’s technology and ecosystem’s in its transition to electric vehicles (EVs), Kenanga Research said.
“Proton will transition to EV in three phases with phase one in 2023 to 2027 (EV pioneering), phase two in 2025 to 2030 (EV growth), and phase three in 2027 to 2030 (EV right-hand development hub),” the research house said. Proton recently launched the X50 RC, and it will be launching the X70 facelift soon.
By the end of 2024, Proton will launch the all-new Proton e.MAS EV (completely built up unit) using the Global Modular Architecture platform. The company hopes to sell 200,000 units yearly built on the platform by 2030.