Proton to drive into Indian auto market

According to group managing director, Dato' Haji Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir, Proton, the Malaysian auto giant, hopes to get into Indian markets. The company is mulling to foray into the domestic market with its EMAS concept car. The model was earlier displayed at the Geneva Auto Show and has been designed by an Italian firm Italdesign Giugiaro. This model is a four-seater model with a total length of 3,550-mm.

Proton is aiming to launch the small car in the Indian market with an extremely competitive price tag to target volume sales. Proton also plans to set up an assembly line in India to make the car most competitively priced in the domestic market. It has been learned that Nissan may license its global compact 'Versatile' platform to Proton which desperately wants a credible small car to gain an advantage in key markets like India.

In an interview, he said that since 2008, they have conducted a series of customer surveys and road tests in order to thoroughly understand market requirements and customer behavior. They believe that their range of products is capable of satisfying the requirements of the Indian market. To date, their current models fit well in the Indian automotive segments of A3 (Saga, Persona, Gen.2) and MPV (Exora). Their future new models in the pipeline have also taken into consideration the need to fulfill the Indian market requirements -- GSC (segment A2) and Persona-R (segment A4)."