Peter Lyon
March 7, 2024
Stellantis has just made a major announcement for Malaysia. The company has declared that as of 1 March 2024, the new Stellantis Malaysia National Sales Company—to be referred to as Stellantis Malaysia—will be the carmaker’s new official company in charge of coordinating and managing its marketing, sales, distribution, and after-sales operations in Malaysia.
In keeping with the company’s electrification goals and its Dare Forward 2030 strategy, Stellantis has launched a new national sales company and new business strategy that will see a greater emphasis on growth inside the ASEAN region.
The first task for Stellantis Malaysia will be to replace Bermaz Auto Alliance, which has since ceased operations, as the country’s major Peugeot brand. However, the corporation intends to bring additional cars from the larger Stellantis group stable into the nation in addition to Peugeot.
Jamie Francis Morais, Managing Director of Stellantis Malaysia, commented on the new national sales company, saying, “Stellantis Malaysia is an exciting start and new business chapter for us here in Malaysia. Our priorities are four-pronged – accelerating market growth, expanding product portfolio, creating new dealership opportunities nationwide, and subsequently providing improved customer experience.”
Morais said that to sustain Peugeot’s growth, the company would add a greater selection of cars from other brands to the Stellantis portfolio.
The carmaker has unveiled a “potential future line-up of vehicles” that it plans to introduce into Malaysia during its recent Investor Day, which will include the all-new Peugeot 408 sometime in Q2 2024, as well as the Peugeot Landtrek in CKD form. Along with Peugeot models, other vehicles on display at the event were the Citroen C3 Aircross, Alfa Romeo Tonale MHEV, and Jeep Wrangler, all of which may be coming here soon.
The company announced in a press release that it recently invested RM2 billion in its assembly plant in Gurun, Kedah, with the aim of transforming it into a “regional manufacturing hub to produce vehicles that are locally manufactured for Malaysians and for the export market in the ASEAN region.”
The Gurun plant will be equipped with tools to build automobiles on the STLA Medium platform of the company, creating opportunities for the local production of fully electric, internally combustion engine-powered, and mildly hybrid cars from the Stellantis stable of brands, such as Citroen and Jeep. Stellantis Malaysia claims that for the time being, it will “start with a focus on Peugeot,” but that will be farther down the road.
CARLIST THOUGHTS
Malaysia is perfectly situated to become a regional hub for Stellantis, so the decision to invest RM2 billion in an assembly plant will transform the carmaker’s reach logarithmically. And thousands of ASEAN-based customers will benefit by being exposed to a much richer variety of vehicles.
