SHAH ALAM: UMW Holdings Bhd is confident of selling 75,000 units of Toyota vehicles this year, a 12 per cent increase from 66,562 units achieved in 2018.
This will be driven by an all-new Vios, locally-assembled Yaris hatchback and other new Toyota model launches.
UMW president and group chief executive officer Badrul Feisal Abdul Rahim said its automotive unit, UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd was "doing great" in terms of sales performances for the first quarter of this year.
"We want to maintain a 12 per cent target growth for this year and we believe the target sales will be achieved with the launch of our new vehicle models, as well as ongoing popularity of our existing ones,” he told reporters after UMW's extraordinary general meeting (EGM) here today.
Besides co-owning UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd, UMW is the single largest shareholder in national car company Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd.
In May this year, Badrul Feisal was quoted saying the competition in the automotive sector was becoming greater, and that the company had no reason to revise its sales target despite Bank Negara Malaysia's decision to reduce the the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) to three per cent.
UMW has allocated over RM600 million in capital expenditure (capex) for financial year 2019, with RM174 million going for the automotive business that contributed almost 80 per cent of its total revenue in FY18.
At the EGM, UMW received a nod from shareholders to dispose 38.803 acres of industrial leasehold land in Shah Alam to Strategic Sonata Sdn Bhd (SSSB) for RM287.7 million.
On November 30 last year, UMW had announced that the disposal would enable it to fully unlock and realise the value of its long-held assets as part of its broader strategic thrust of sustainable value creation for shareholders.
Badrul Feisal said the tenancy will ensure the group’s ongoing business operations in Shah Alam to proceed without disruption prior to the planned relocation to UMW High Value Manufacturing Park in Serendah.
He added that the company was expected to complete the construction of the park in three years.
"We are selling the land in Shah Alam now, then we have to complete our campuses and other facilities in Serendah. That would be take a maximum of three years,” he said.