Proton's South African comeback since 2012 begins with first shipment of Saga, X50, and X70

After an absence of a decade, Proton makes its return to the South African market with its first shipment of vehicles on Friday, 27-May 2022. This comes after signing an agreement with CMH Group as Proton’s distributor back in April.

The first batch of vehicles consists of the Proton X50, Proton X70, and the Proton Saga while it is also expected to arrive in Durban in July.

Proton’s export growth sales in 2022 so far have been fuelled by the X50 and X70 with both SUVs showing an increase in demand of 77% and 31% respectively.

Total export sales gave grown 175% in Q1 2022 over the same period in 2021 and Proton expects that number to increase with export sales targets growing by more than 300% by the end of the year.

Also read: Proton resumes exports, cumulative sales up by 1.6 percent

Currently, Proton has assembly plants (CKD) in Pakistan, Kenya, and Bangladesh with Sri Lanka set to join the list in the second half of 2022. In the past 3 years, Proton has seen significant increases in its percentage of Malaysia’s overall vehicle exports from 12.8% in 2019, 30.2% in 2020, and 61% in 2021.

Also read: CKD in Pakistan: 2021 Proton Saga project fires up, Proton X70 to join soon