Malaysia’s Edaran Tan Chong Motor Sdn Bhd (ETCM) has won the highest respect from Nissan by winning the Nissan Global Award for the Southeast Asia region.

The Nissan Global Award Program for importers recognises the efforts and achievements of importers and National Sales Companies (NSC) in the areas of sales and aftersales.

On top of winning the region’s Global Award for sales, which judges finalists on overall sales volume, market share and customer service activities, Tan Chong also bagged the Grand Prize in the regional after-sales category for their excellence shown in parts and accessory, service performance, logistics, and customer service.

Tan Chong & Sons Motor Company Sdn. Bhd., which operates the Nissan business in Malaysia under Edaran Tan Chong Motor (ETCM), is one of Nissan’s longest serving importer-distributor partner, since 1957.

The award is also shared with Singapore, where Nissan is represented by Tan Chong Motor Sales Pte Ltd of Singapore. The Singapore business is parked under the Hong Kong-listed Tan Chong International Limited, while the Malaysian business is under the Bursa-listed Tan Chong Motor Holdings.

“Despite the challenges posed by production supply shortages and turbulent market dynamics over the fiscal year of 2022, the team at Tan Chong Motor have shown that they are able to excel in adversity. Thus, it is an honour to present Tan Chong Motor with the Nissan Global Award 2023 in recognition of the outstanding performance as the official importer and distributor of Nissan vehicles in Malaysia over the fiscal year of 2022,” said Yoshinori Kanazawa, Vice President of NIBU-ASEAN, Nissan Motor Asia Pacific Co., Ltd.

“The Nissan brand in Malaysia is synonymous with Tan Chong. As business partners of over 60 years, we accept the Nissan Global Award 2023 with immense pride and humility. Our commitment to deliver exciting products and world-class services to our customers has never wavered and this award from Nissan Motor Asia Pacific Co., Ltd. is testament to the hard work and dedication that stems from the heart of every member of our organisation,” said Christopher Tan, the Sales & Marketing Director of Edaran Tan Chong Motor Sdn Bhd.

“We stand alongside Nissan in support of their mission to drive innovation that enriches people’s life. Our new Nissan 3S Flagship Store in Petaling Jaya, Selangor was recently unveiled to better serve our customers, while the remainder of the ETCM network is also being transformed in accordance to the latest Nissan Retail Concept,” added Tan.

The Nissan brand has seen better days, especially in Southeast Asia, where even Mitsubishi Motors, which has a much smaller range of just 3 models - Triton, Pajero Sport, Xpander – is selling more cars than Nissan, once the region’s top selling brand standing wheel-to-wheel with Toyota.

As a distributor with a very limited range of competitive models, there’s only so much that Tan Chong can do to hold the fort for Nissan and Nissan knows that.

Despite the challenges from tax-deducted Proton and Perodua, Tan Chong is doing a much better job at representing Nissan in Malaysia than Nissan themselves can in Indonesia, where their wholly owned subsidiary managed to sell just 925 units between January to June 2023, in a market that sells nearly 1 million cars annually. ETCM sold 5,034 units in the same 6-month period in Malaysia, a market half the size of Indonesia, and this is before factoring the Proton-Perodua factor.

Also read: Once Japan’s strongest, Nissan is now weakest. How did it end up like this?