AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR

CGSCIMB said it was among the 20 analysts and fund managers that were invited for an exclusive preview of the Proton X70 in Petaling Jaya which was hosted by Proton’s management team.

It said that although Proton has not disclosed the selling price for the X70, the C-segment SUV would be competitively priced relative to its peers of between RM120,000 and RM140,000.

It also notes that pre-orders of over 5,000 units are encouraging since bookings became available in September 2018.

“We estimate Proton has received over 7,000 pre-booking units since the bookings were made available a month ago,” CGSCIMB said.

It noted that Proton is investing RM1.2bil to expand the production capacity of its Tanjung Malim plant to cater to the manufacturing of the next generation Proton models, starting with the locally-assembled X70.

“This is part of the group’s strategy to trans- form Tanjung Malim into a research and development and production hub for righthand drive models under the Geely group. The investment will be funded by internally by Proton,” it said.

“The first phase of the expansion will include the construction of the body in white building, sub-assembly building, extension of trim and final and logistics facilities. Following the completion of the first phase in March 2019, the plant will have an annual production capacity of 150,000 units per year,” it added.

CGSCIMB also said Proton has secured the rights to use the intellectual properties (IPs) to manufacture and sell three Geely models for the next 10 years in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

“The three models are the Boyue SUV, Geely SX11 SUV, and VF11 MPV.

“The agreement was signed between Geely Automobile and Zhejiang Geely Holdings, the joint-owner of Proton. The total licence fee for the IPs is 1.34 billion yuan (or RM804mil),” it said.