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Perodua says it anticipates total sales in 2014 to exceed 195,000 units, with numbers being buoyed by the introduction of the Perodua Axia back in August.

The automaker's president and CEO Datuk Aminar Rashid Salleh said that the expected figure would be higher than the targeted 193,000 units it had forecast earlier. "This would be the stretch target for this year," he told reporters at the opening of Perodua's first 3S 'hybrid' centre in Rawang.

Aminar said that the bookings for the Axia was now at 62,000 units (back in October, the figure was 42,000), and that the company had registered and delivered 26,000 units thus far. "We are working hard to speed up production, so customers need not have to wait very long," he stated.

The Perodua 3S 'hybrid' centre, meanwhile, is the first of its kind - the 'hybrid' classification is derived from the fact that a dealer - Medan Prisma - operates the sales showroom while the service and spare parts operations are handled directly by Perodua.

Built on a 52,523 sq ft land area, the 3S centre has 51 staff - 21 in sales and 30 in service. The facility has 25 service bays and can handle 60 to 65 vehicles a day. The automaker currently has 182 sales and 176 services outlets across the country, of which 70% are sales and service dealers.