OREANDA-NEWS. April 05, 2012. The Chery Eastar Club in Malaysia has been active in organizing monthly charity drives and social gatherings since it was established four years ago.

Last year, it broke the Malaysian book of records for the longest convoy with 147 vehicles over 11 kilometers.

The number of club members surged from less than 100 when it first started to 500 across peninsular Malaysia, as more car users in the country are turning to the "value-for-money" Chinese car.

"We were looking for a multipurpose vehicle (MPV) because eight of us in a family no longer fit in a car. Then we saw Chery Eastar in 2009 and took the risk to buy it because you don't see Chery Eastars on the streets," one of the members, Mohamad Omar said.

"I loved its appearance. It saves petrol and is comfortable,"he added.

Chery sold close to 3,000 vehicles last year in Malaysia, its main manufacturing hub in Southeast Asia, with seven-seater MPV Chery Eastar contributing 90 percent of the sales.

The market price of Chery Eastar is 80,000 ringgit (26,079 U.S. dollars) the second lowest among its competitors here, but the car is lengthier and has a more spacious third-row seat.

"They are doing well, especially for a young Chinese car maker who has no history of branding or marketing to speak of," car review writer Thomas Huong said.

"They first entered Malaysia in 2005 and it was in 2008 that they started taking off, selling about 600 over cars, around then, they decided to locally assemble the Eastar MPV (multi purpose vehicle) because they saw potentials with that make here. With the complete knock-down operations, they subsequently reduced the selling price and made it competitive," he added.


The 15-year-old carmaker's performance in Malaysia, although impressive, is dwarfed by that of other overseas market like Iran, Brazil and Venezuela, where people were reported to queue up to buy Chery cars.

Chery was selling 60,000 units a year in Brazil and close to 30, 000 units a year in Iran.

The Anhui province-based company said it has sold a record 643, 000 vehicles last year and shipped 160,200 cars overseas.

To boost its popularity in Malaysia, the company plans to work around the country's policy which restricts the import of cars with 1.8-litre engine and below, to reduce its dependency on limited models.

"Right now we are only selling two models the Eastar 2.0 litre and the Tiggo compact SUV in the peninsular (Malaysia) and two other models, A5 and QQ at the duty free zones. We will bring in Transcom, which is a commercial 2.0 litre that is not restricted by the policy and we are trying to do some modification to other existing models which we couldn't bring into this country because of the import restrictions," CEO of Chery Alado Automobile Sdn Bhd, Paul Ng told Xinhua in an interview.

"We are aware that we can't depend on a single flagship vehicle to establish our presence here," he added.

The company aims to sell five models in Malaysia by the end of this year.

It targets in the next three years to hit at least 5,000 units in sales volume in Malaysia and 2,000 units in Indonesia, their two biggest markets in Southeast Asia.

"Last year, their global sales were between 600,000 and 700,000, that's a huge number when you compare it with other older carmakers, some of which have gone bankrupt along the way," Huong said.

"If they want to grow further in Malaysia, it is about time they have to introduce new models. They have to play the catch up game like how the Japanese had to catch up with the European and American carmakers about 40 years ago and the Koreans, with the Japanese in the past 20 years. Now the Chinese trend is right behind them," Huong added.

"It is spacious and perfect for long distance. I bought the Chery Eastar in 2009 and it has been the best decision I have made, " said another Chery Eastar owner, Mohamad Bahtiar Harun.