Proton Edar, the local sales arm of the state-run carmaker, has announced the sale of its flagship Crystal showroom and COSE service center at the brand’s Shah Alam headquarters to MBf Automobiles. From December 1, the dealership will be known as his Proton MBf Automobile COE 4S, but there will be no operational changes.
It may sound surprising why Eder would sell its main dealership attached to its headquarters to an outside group, but that is actually not the case. This is because the company is gradually moving away from direct sales and starting to sell dealers outside the group. 2020 will see the introduction of third parties, moving to a dealership model like Honda and more recently Toyota.
In April 2020, Proton will implement a restructuring plan to separate its sales and vehicle assembly divisions, and plans to sell dealerships under its wholly-owned Proton Edar division to Edaran Automobile National (EON). It was reported that. , and its remaining dealers in bulk to other dealers.
By November of the same year, this proposal became a reality and EON, wholly owned by DRB-Hicom, expanded Proton Edar to nine Proton dealerships, including four 4S (Sales, Service, Spares and Sprays) centers and three 3S centers. took over. , he has four branches in the central region and two branches each in Johor and Penang.
The sale of the dealership to EON was almost a full circle move for Proton. EON was founded in 1984 to sell Proton cars, but a conflict with Proton’s management led the automaker to create Proton Edar and downgrade EON to super dealer status. In 2009, EON and Proton entered into a master dealer agreement, and as a result of the resulting merger, EON’s dealership transitioned to Proton Eder, and ultimately EON ceased to be a Proton dealer in 2012.
As for MBf Automotive, it is of course part of MBf Holdings, but with the acquisition of the CoE showroom, it now operates three stores, the others in Menara MBf and Jelatek.
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