The national car manufacturer recorded not only a new sales high for the year but also achieved its best sales month since September 2013.

Following this, Proton has retained its second position in Malaysia’s car sales rankings

“For the first quarter of the year, the company achieved a cumulative sales total of 32,826 vehicles and its highest quarterly market share figure since March 2012,” it said in a statement today.

Proton said its two sport utility vehicle (SUV) models continued to grow in March as the company’s new production line at Tanjung Malim increased its output for the month. A total of 3,513 units of the X50 were delivered while the X70 saw a month-on-month increase of 58.4% to 2,337 vehicles.

“When combined, it means Proton has set another internal record with 5,850 SUVs delivered, beating the previous record of 4,820 units set just last month,” it said.%

However, Proton said the Saga remained its top seller with 5,589 vehicles delivered, with sales for the A-segment sedan growing by 32.5 % compared to February.

The Persona, Iriz and Exora models also posted the best figures for the year with the evergreen multi-purpose vehicles (MPV) again topping the list for the highest C-segment MPV sales with 2,151 Persona, 810 Iriz and 584 Exora vehicles during the month.

Proton Edar Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Roslan Abdullah said that after a soft start to the year, Malaysia’s automotive industry had finally hit its stride.

“We estimate total industry volume to be over 63,000 units, suggesting that all brands will post their best numbers for the year,” he said.