Just at the beginning of this year, historic German automotive marquee Porsche said that it will not build a factory in China anytime soon because the company wants to maintain its “Made in Germany” image.
According to the company’s CEO Oliver Blume when he spoke with the Financial Times then, the decision comes despite China now being the automaker’s largest market in the world! “It is a quality and a premium argument still to produce from Europe for China,” Blume told the business daily. “Today, it doesn’t make any sense to move production anywhere outside of Germany.”
But guess what? Now, the 90-year-old luxury brand has just announced that it will be opening its first factory outside of Europe next year, in a marked departure from its previous statement just months earlier… And best of all, that factory is set to be right here in Malaysia!
Porsche Chooses Malaysia
“We are pleased that our existing plants will be able to meet current and future global automotive demand with careful planning,” Porsche’s director of production, Albrecht Reymold, said just on Monday. However, he goes on, Malaysia’s new assembly line “is an independent project that meets the needs of a particular market, is modest in size and capacity, but is willing to learn and adapt to market conditions in the particular region.”
The new assembly line is to be set up here in Malaysia by Sime Darby, which began assembling cars locally in 1982 for BMW and Land Rover, and has since added brands such as Hyundai and Mazda in its portfolio. Meanwhile, Porsche has also commented that the arrangement will help strengthen its position “in the emerging markets of Southeast Asia.”
The Malaysian conglomerate, with health, logistics and insurance wings, has already been a partner with Porsche for more than a decade as its local distributor. “Now, we are pleased to extend our relationship with Porsche from retail and distribution to include assembly,” reveals Sime Darby CEO Jeffri Salim Davidson.
For its part, Sime Darby, in the past decade, has already delivered just over 400 Porsche models to customers in Malaysia. “Every car assembled by Sime Darby goes through the same rigorous standards and processes as the ones manufactured in its home country. Now, to assemble cars for one of the world’s most admired sports car brands speaks volumes of the highly qualified and competent Malaysian talent we have at Sime Darby and our ability to provide meaningful value to our partners,” Davidson added.
And with the World Bank predicting Malaysia likely to move to a high-income economy sometime between 2024 and 2028, perhaps the new plans by Porsche and Sime Darby will see comprehensive manufacturing, sales and support infrastructure in place to serve new clients from this country with even deeper pockets in the very near future!
