UMW bullish on growth
PETALING JAYA: UMW Holdings Bhd is bullish on its growth prospects this year and next, said group chief executive officer Datuk Syed Hisham Syed Wazir.
“The (local) economy is growing. We are seeing very good sales in our cars and positive sales for (our) equipments.
“Moving forward, we see this continuing till next year to achieve our (key performance indicator or KPI) targets,” Syed Hisham said at the UMW Industrial Power 5S certification award ceremony.
He said that despite the economic woes in the West now, UMW was “confident that the local scenario will be sustainable moving forward to next year.”
The company has an internal KPI target to achieve RM15bil turnover and RM1.75bil pre-tax profit.
He also said UMW had last year achieved its KPI target of RM13bil turnover and RM1.3bil pre-tax profit.
UMW had in August reported that its first-half revenue for financial year 2012 rose to RM7.84bil from RM6.39bil previously while net profitnearlydoubledtoRM444.28mil from RM254.81mil.
Meanwhile, UMW which is involved in the distribution and production of Toyota and Perodua cars, had maintained its sales targets for these car makes based on feedback that it had obtained from the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA).
“They (MAA) are maintaining the overall target to about 615,000 cars in total industry volume this year. For Toyota, we are targeting 93,000 units (in sales) while for Perodua, we aim to sell 188,000 units,” Syed Hashim said.
On whether the responsible lending guidelines announced by Bank Negara had affected its projections, he said: “It had some effects earlier but it was mainly on Perodua vehicles, especially the lower-end model Viva.
“As we had had continuous engagements with the Government and the banks, they are able to come to some acceptable level of working relationship in the processing of loans. Perodua has also changed its model mix to promote other models in addition to Viva.”