ALOR GAJAH, April 3 — Honda Malaysia has much to celebrate this month — in the 14th year after commissioning the Honda production plant in Pegoh, Malacca, the company is celebrating its 600,000th unit produced, which is a very important milestone.

At the same time, Honda Malaysia is also celebrating the sale of its 100,000th unit for its current financial year (April 1, 2016 — March 31, 2017), despite the challenging market conditions in 2016.

The production of the 600,000th unit was achieved within a span of 14 years since Honda Malaysia started local assembly in its Pegoh plant. Currently, Honda Malaysia has two production lines in this plant — the No.1 Line which started operations in 2003 and the No.2 Line that began operations in 2014.

Honda Malaysia managing director and chief executive officer (CEO), Katsuto Hayashi said, "The addition of the No.2 Line in 2014 has enabled Honda Malaysia to grow at an accelerated rate. We achieved 300,000 production units in just three years as compared to 11 years taken earlier to reach the first 300,000 units.

"I believe this was achieved through good strategy and strong challenging spirit from the Honda family. With this readily-available facility in Malacca plant, Honda Malaysia has the spare capacity to fulfil bookings from customers as well as produce the best products for Malaysians.”

Today, Honda Malaysia’s No.1 and No.2 lines produce seven models to cater to wider customer needs as compared to when it first started with just four models, the CR-V, City, Civic and Accord. Currently the Accord, City, Civic, CR-V, Jazz, HR-V and BR-V are locally assembled at the Pegoh plant.

Equipped with advanced technologies, the Pegoh plant was built with flexible production capacity that can produce multiple models at the same time (on the same line) in order to meet market demand.

These specially designed production lines and strategic planning have enabled Honda Malaysia to shorten the waiting period for customers whenever there is a surge in the demand. For example, the waiting period for the BR-V is only one to two months despite the bookings being close to 10,000 units, which is 12 times its monthly sales target. In fact, the waiting period for all Honda models is now just one to two months on average.

Today, Honda Malaysia’s No.1 and No.2 Lines produce seven models to cater to wider customer needs as compared to when it first started with just four models.

Some of the latest technologies applied in the plant include the automated Smart Welding Machine to produce high-rigidity body frames utilising high quality material as well as an international standard painting facility comprising Spray Robots and Under Body Coating which improve the quality of body paint and ensure precise coating thickness.

Meanwhile, the custom-built 2.1km Test Course puts every vehicle that comes out of the production line through rigorous testing to assure it's of the highest global standards. These achievements, along with the hard work of its 100per cent local associates are indeed the pride of Honda Malaysia.

Honda Malaysia attributes their good market acceptance and accelerated growth to the support and cooperation received from numerous parties, especially the government, members of the media, Honda Assembly, Honda dealers, suppliers, partners and all Honda associates. In thanking all their stakeholders,   Hayashi said, "We thank each and every one for their continuous support. Honda Malaysia will continue to serve our Malaysian customers with quality products as well as excellent after sales service that exceed customers’ expectations.”

Also present to witness the momentous milestone occasion were Seiji Kuraishi, the executive vice president, executive officer and representative director of Honda Motor Co Ltd;   and  Noriaki  Abe who is the chief   operating   officer,   regional   operations  (Asia  & Oceania) of Honda Motor Co Ltd and the president and CEO of Asian Honda Motor Co Ltd Both Kuraishi and Abe look forward to more accomplishments by Honda Malaysia.

Kuraishi who was the second Honda Malaysia Managing Director and CEO in 2002 to 2005 was appreciative of Honda Malaysia’s contribution. He said that Honda Malaysia’s growth is due to the efforts and understanding of Honda’s philosophy, vision and way of thinking by the local associates.   

Kuraishi noted that some of the young associates whom he hired over 10 years ago are now managing the company by playing important roles with passion. He commended Honda Malaysia for attaining No.1 in Non-National segment and No.2 in overall TIV and expressed gratitude to all Honda dealers and sales associates. He was very pleased that Honda Malaysia took top spot as the country that achieved the highest market share among Honda automobile operations globally for the first 2 months of 2017.

Honda Malaysia attributed their good market acceptance and accelerated growth to the support and cooperation received from numerous parties.

In the meantime,   Abe who has been keeping track of Honda Malaysia’s rapid growth over the years commended the internal and external "Team Honda” for the accomplishments and expressed gratitude to all involved. He congratulated Honda Malaysia on the success of the All-New BR-V which took the No.1 position in the MPV and utility segment in February 2017, outselling the National MPVs.   Abe said, "I am glad to see Honda cars being well accepted by Malaysians. This is part of Honda’s strategy in Asia to continue to bring the Joy of Buying to the people in this region.”

Earlier this year, Honda Malaysia introduced the All-New BR-V, a model that was developed in Asia exclusively for Asian countries. Since its introduction in January, Honda Malaysia has achieved almost 10,000 booking units and more than 5,200 registrations. The launch of New City on 2 March also received positive feedback from customers, with close to 3,000 units booked within a month of its launch, 50per cent more than the monthly target of 2,000 units.

The 600,000th vehicle that rolled out of the No.2 Line at the Pegoh plant was a New City, a significant and cornerstone model to Honda Malaysia. The City is an important model, being the largest sales contributor courtesy of its outstanding reception and warm welcome by Malaysians that made it the B-segment leader for two years in a row.

Editor’s note

Honda Malaysia’s success stems from its strategic decision to increase its production capacity to 100,000 units a year by introducing Line 2 at the Pegoh plant. Based upon personal interviews with key Honda personnel, we glean that this bold move was a result of the Tsunami in Japan and the floods in Thailand in 2011, crippling the production capacity for Honda. These two disasters prompted Honda to establish another strong base in the Asean region.

A direct benefit of increasing the production capacity here in Malaysia, plus the quick recovery of Honda’s plants in Japan and Thailand was that Honda Malaysia was able to shorten waiting periods for its customers. Mirrored against its competitors who were seemingly happy to have a large order bank, and thus a long waiting period, purchasing a Honda seemed to be a better bet.

At the same time, Honda has introduced several new ‘game-changer’ models, such as the HR-V and the BR-V, in addition to the D-segment Features for a C-segment car, the new Civic. These new models have provided such a draw to the customers that despite having a smaller product range, Honda has managed to be number one in the non-national market, and number two overall in Malaysia.