Keeping an eye on the competition is all part of business, and Proton is very much aware that the local market has seen an influx of Chinese players – the company gave us its own China brand-focused market overview at the start of 2025.
At a recent media event where Proton talked about its past, present and future, CEO Li Chunrong said a total of 21 new and returning Chinese brands have been launched in Malaysia over the years. Collectively, these brands have introduced 58 models, with 64% being electric vehicles (EVs) while the remaining 36% are vehicles with some form of internal combustion engine (ICE).
While some of these models compete directly with some of Proton’s offerings, the majority of them are not completely knocked down (CKD) models here. Li pointed out that only five out of the 58 models it listed are “real CKD” products.
These “real CKD” models include the Chery Tiggo Cross, Jaecoo J8 as well as GAC’s GS3 Emzoom, M8 PHEV and Emkoo. Cars from Chery (Omoda 5, Omoda E5, Tiggo 8 Pro and Tiggo 7 Pro), Omoda | Jaecoo (J7 and C9) and Great Wall Motor (Haval H6) may roll off factory lines here in Malaysia, but they are deemed by Proton as semi-knocked down (SKD) models.
In the case of CKD assembly, the entire car comes in a completely disassembled form before being put together here. On the other hand, SKD involves putting together partially assembled parts to create the final product.
Another point that Li highlighted is low volume, as the 10 best-selling models in the list of 58 models averaged under 1,000 units a month. Some of the top performers identified by Proton include the Jaecoo J7, Omoda C9, Chery Tiggo 7 Pro and BYD Sealion 7.
It has to be noted, however, that Proton itself runs an SKD local assembly operation with its eMas 7 (production has just started, after a year of CBU sales), while the smaller eMas 5 is still fully imported from China. The latter is sold under a CKD bridging programme to sidestep the previous floor pricing of RM100k for CBU EVs, which has now been upped to RM250k.
However, we assume Proton has plans to move its eMas models to proper CKD operations in Tanjong Malim sooner rather than later. For comparison, Geely has started full CKD assembly of the EX2 (eMas 5 twin) in Indonesia with no less than 46.5% local content, including locally-assembled battery packs.
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Ensure all workers for these ckd chinese brands are Malaysian. Otherwise, they are NOT welcome here. Shoo, go away!
Well said by lazy complacency unproductive labourer
thank to government policy, we are also dumping ground for unwanted citizens from other countries, so sampah cars suit sampah rakyat like ours.
that’s why your comment got sampah
You admit you are rubbish is your own matter. Do not represent others!
b grateful to ccp for defending malaya against japs during ww2,defending malaya against british colonials after ww2, and today giving malaysians jobs and subsidizing our cars purcahase
what crazy tiktokkok sejarah u baca
engkau ni mesti tengah khayal dgn dadah bila belajar mata pelajaran sejarah
“These “real CKD” models include the Chery Tiggo Cross, Jaecoo J8 as well as GAC’s GS3 Emzoom, M8 PHEV and Emkoo”
GAC I’m not surprised since it’s assembled by TCM who’s been in the CKD business forever.
But to invest to CKD Jaecoo J8 over J7 seems odd
Lotus is British, smart is German
*Was British, partly still German.
Everyone very proud of CKD. If you are the boss, will you spend a lot of money in small market country?
And P1 is very lucky indeed still getting the tongkat from govt in the form of price setting aka protection. Remove this and proton will die.
Whatever happens to the many talents saying they had the experience to market cars and sell in big volumes? Well offer them a good pay job with the tasks of marketing in Thailand, Indonesia, India, Australia, Central Asia, Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.
This was reason why Proton failed in export markets. When asks who wants to take charge of Proton in the UK, everybody raise their hands.
And ask again who wants to go represent Proton in Morocco, Lithuania, Bangladesh, Kenya, Papua Nee Guinea …and the meeting room becomes quiet.
Trust me there could be easily 100k units worth of exports a year if Proton start to focus in many of the developing nations and the 3rd world countries.
That’s what Kia and Hyundai did some 35 years ago. Today they are 3rd largest in the world.