KUALA LUMPUR : Proton Holdings Bhd and Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd (Perodua) were among six local companies that received top accolades at the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Automotive Awards yesterday.

The Proton Saga was named Malaysia's best model of the year, while Perodua's Viva won with the best-value-for money model award.

The other companies were Automotive Corporation Malaysia Sdn Bhd (ACM), Ingress Corporation Bhd (ICB), Public Bank Bhd and Automotive Synergy Incorporated Sdn Bhd (ASI).

ACM won for light commercial vehicle company of the year, ICB for automotive component manufacturer of the year, Public Bank for automotive finance company of the year and ASI received the business development strategy leadership award.

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

Frost & Sullivan partner and head of the automotive and transportation practice Asia-Pacific Kavan Mukhtyar said 2009 has been very challenging for the automotive industry due to the global financial crisis.

"Automotive companies across Asia-Pacific have had to innovate and reinvent to rise to the challenge and increase their value proposition to stay on top of the game," he said.

He added that the recipients of the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Automotive Awards clearly 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.

Mukhtyar said compact cars and environmentally-friendly vehicles were likely to be popular with consumers' in the future.

"Automakers' focus for the future will be to develop low-cost cars and engines that are fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly," he said, adding that automakers globally were also investing in electric vehicles.

Frost & Sullivan estimated that the Asia-Pacific region could see some 169,000 electric cars by 2015 as compared to about 1,100 in 2008 as consumers become more environment conscious.

However, Mukhtyar said that goverments in the Asia-Pacific might need to review their automotive policies to encourage development of alternate fuel-based vehicles.

He also expected Asian companies to play a bigger role once the global automotive market recovers.

"There is likely to be more sourcing of components from the Asia-Pacific region and companies may also relocate their plants to Asia from Europe or North America," he added.

He said governments in the Asia-Pacific region must react fast and be responsive to various changing trends in the automotive industry if they want to attract the next wave of automotive investments.

Mukhtyar said that the low-cost car segment has become a reality with the unveiling of the Nano by the Tata Group.

He predicted that the low-cost cars segment would be one of the fasted-growing vehicle segments in the next few years and could spur development and production for other low-cost parts.