IN November 2018, after four previous business ‘marriages’ with Malaysian companies, General Motors, who owns the Chevrolet brand retracted again from Malaysia. Its fourth business partner, the Naza Group, ended their business relationship with General Motors for a number of reasons.
At the time of its business closure, all Malaysian Chevrolet owners expressed their unhappiness with the Naza Group in handling customer issues as owners were left without after sales and warranty. This is in most part a Chevrolet (GM) issue and NOT just a Naza Quest (which was the company handling the Chevrolet brand) issue alone.
You can do a quick search online and read for yourself how Chevrolet has also lost a lot of customers in Thailand and Indonesia with its lack of new products and questionable after sales.
General Motors has had production of Chevrolet vehicles in both countries for many years and still they did not look after their customers and instead continued to ‘drop’ sub-standard and aging products in Asean showrooms. Better known as product dumping, they tried the same in Malaysia and failed four times.
In early 2015, General Motors (GM) pulled out of Indonesia after operating there since 1938, closing its sole Indonesian plant at Bekasi, a factory 16km east of the capital Jakarta. At the time, its market share in Indonesia stood below 1%.
Then weeks later, GM started scaling down its operations in Thailand where it had just a 3% market share. At the time, the Chevrolet Spin (compact MPV) and Sonic (compact car) were seeing declining sales despite the Thai government's push to encourage compact vehicles sales using the ‘Eco Car 2’ programme.
Only the Chevrolet pickup truck (Colorado) seemed to continue having a following and even then, its sales was reducing year-on-year. Meanwhile, its direct rival, Ford, was growing in Thailand in market share with its Ranger pickup truck.
It is time for General Motors to understand that Asean is a mature car market and buyers will not accept old technology under fresh paint and new leather upholstery.
The brand owners have not shown respect for Asean nations and have used Asean as a ‘dumping ground’ for ageing products with high prices. The ‘Made In America’ agenda superseded the ‘give Asean buyers quality’ agenda and this is why Asean buyers walked away from the Chevrolet brand.
The Chevrolet Malibu, Optra and Orlando were all ageing products when launched in Malaysia in 2015 and their American marketers thought Malaysians will accept these ‘American’ cars with open arms.
Old engines, old platforms and bland interiors could not compete with new Japanese and Korean cars coming with the latest powertrains and snazzy infotainment systems.
Meanwhile, General Motors who owns the Chevrolet brand is in the midst of finding a new partner in Malaysia. Whoever the new partner may be (all will be revealed soon) will have little support from Malaysian car buyers as the brand has retired from Malaysia four times in the past 20 years. – The Vibes, November 27, 2020
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