Proton (Hold)
Proton 3-21A- Arriving Soon
Analysts were given opportunity to testdrive Proton's P3-21A 1.6L or better known as Persona Replacement model We were impressed by P3-21A performances, showing great improvements ascompared to previous Proton's model.
Great efforts were being put into thesafety features of P3-21A in meeting ECE safety requirements.
P3-21A is targeted towards medium to highincome group.
The development cost of P3-21A is relatively low atRM300m for it uses the existing platform and engine from Exora. Hence, weexpect the car to garner higher margins.
Despite the great performance by P3-21A, the pricingwill remain as a major determinant in car sales volume. Furthermore, theresponsible lending guideline is expected hit low-mid end car sales especially Protonand Perodua.
We view the fuel consumptions of ~19sen/kmas relatively high as increasing number of consumers are giving more emphasizeon fuel efficiency.
Maintain Hold with TP of RM5.50.
Source: HLIB Research 12 March 2012