SIX Malaysian companies were recognised for their industry excellence at the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Automotive Awards last night.

Perodua Viva won Malaysia's Best Value-For-Money Model of the Year, while Proton Saga was named Malaysia's Best Model of the Year.

Besides Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Kedua Sdn Bhd (Perodua) and Proton Holdings bhd, other local winners at the awards were Automotive Corporation Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Ingress Corporation bhd, Public Bank Bhd and Automotive Synergy Incorporated Sdn Bhd.

The awards, held annually, seek to recognise and honour outstanding performance by companies in the automotive industry in Asia Pacific. The awards banquet was officiated by Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Mustapa Mohamed.

Kavan Mukhtyar, partner and head of the Automotive and Transportation Practice, Asia Pacific at Frost & Sullivan, said the awards recipients had demonstrated outstanding leadership in their own market segments.

"A common factor across all the award recipients is that they have achieved excellence by having a customer-centric approach in an extremely uncertain environment," he said in a statement.

The short-listed companies for the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Automotive Awards were evaluated on a variety of actual market performance indicators which include revenue growth; market share and growth in market share; leadership in product innovation; marketing strategy and business development strategy.