CHENGDU (China): Sime Darby Motors, a unit of the country's oldest conglomerate Sime Darby Bhd, is poised to create company history by becoming the single largest contributor to group revenue for the financial year just ended June 30 2011. Historically, the plantation division has been the mainstay of the Sime Darby group, but in recent years, the motor division has been playing catch-up. For the year ended June 30 2010, Sime Darby Motors registered a record turnover of RM10.1 billion, while the plantation division generated RM10.86 billion in sales. Sime Darby Motors performance for the financial year just ended was also helped by its operations aboard. According to Sime Darby Motors managing director Datuk Lawrence Lee, the company had sold some 70,000 vehicles in the year ended June 30 2011, substantially higher than the 60,000 units projected earlier. With this in mind, Lee suggested that Sime Darby Motors would overtake the plantation division as Sime Darby's number one revenue contributor for the financial year just ended. "From July 2010 to June 2011, we sold more than 70,000 vehicles with China sales making up about 27,000 units," Lee told Malaysian reporters prior to the launch of Sime Darby Motors' BMW 4S centre here yesterday. Sime Darby Motor was already ahead of the plantation division up to the third quarter ended March this year, notching a revenue of RM11.5 billion helped by sales of 54,514 vehicles across eight countries. In the year ended June 2010, it sold a total of 56,836 vehicles. The RM11.5 billion is equivalent to about 30 per cent of the total revenue of Sime Darby, the world's largest listed palm oil producer. As at December 31 last year, Sime Darby's plantation division registered a revenue of RM5.72 billion. Sime Darby Motors is currently present in eight countries across Asia Pacific. It represents 32 marques ranging from premium and super premium brands such as BMW, Porsche, Rolls-Royce and McLaren to various mass market brands like Hyundai and Mazda and also commercial vehicles such as Hino and Mack. Some 80 per cent of Sime Darby Motors' revenue comes from overseas, Lee said. The company is one of the world's largest BMW dealer groups. The China market, which includes Hong Kong and Macau, will continue to be Sime Darby Motors' most important market especially in the premium segment, although Lee expects continued solid growth in Singapore, Thailand, Australia and Malaysia too. The China market, he said, has climbed since the past three years, buoyed by the company's premium segment led by BMW, MINI and Rolls Royce. In the third quarter, Sime Darby's sales in China, Hong Kong and Macau registered RM4.6 billion revenue to account for about one third of Sime Darby Motor's total turnover. Singapore and Thailand came in second with a combined RM2.17 billion during the same period, while Malaysia was third with RM2.03 billion. "Sales volume of our China market grew 63 per cent over the July 2010-June 2011. The impediment to our growth there is how to get the right location for our outlets," Lee said.
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