Proton just released its monthly sales reports, and things are not looking particularly great. In January 2021 last month, only 1,082 units of the Proton X50 were delivered to eager buyers. To date, only 4,809 units of the highly anticipated B-segment SUV have been delivered.

Naturally, this figure dwarfs the total bookings of the Proton X50, which has actually exceeded the 30,000 mark back in December 2020. As for the national carmaker’s other (equally) popular SUV, the Proton X70, only 892 units were delivered last month. Still, both SUVs are leading their respective segments in Malaysia.

According to Proton, these figures are merely a “reflection of supply not being able to meet demand rather than a reduction in bookings” – the carmaker added that it is working hard to meet customer demand. “Our supply lines have been disrupted over the last few months by the coronavirus, making it difficult to ensure a steady flow of parts needed to build our cars,” said the CEO of Proton Edar, Roslan Abdullah.

“It’s something all car manufacturers have been facing for the past year, but we are hopeful that with the arrival of a vaccine things will stabilise by the middle of the year,” he added. Naturally, the extension of the Movement Control Order (MCO) to 18 February will further affect Proton’s ability to produce as many cars as it possibly can.

Proton added that despite the delays, the national carmaker still “intends to pursue its product launch plans for 2021,” so we can expect the much rumoured Proton Persona and Proton Iriz facelift to be launched sometime this year. Hopefully, more units of the X50 – and the X70 – will be delivered to eager buyers (myself included) as well in the near future.