Malaysia’s appetite for cars is just… unbelievable. In a land of not even 40 million people, we bought 820,752 new cars last year (yet another record), or 0.5% more than 2024’s 816,747. This is the second year in a row we’ve broken 800k and our fourth consecutive year of post-Covid growth.
December 2025 was a record month (90,716 new cars found homes, beating the previous record of 81,735 units in December 2024), while Q4 2025 was a record quarter (241,416 units).
The Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) attributes the performance to robust economic growth (GDP +4.7% in first three quarters of 2025), strong domestic demand, recovering exports, favourable financing (2.75% OPR since July), socio-political stability, a 2.9% unemployment rate (an 11-year low), strong order backlogs especially in the A-segment, the EV rise (+109%) and aggressive promos.
Driven by SUV mania, passenger vehicles expanded 13% to 228,572 units in 2025 compared to 2024’s 201,565 units, while commercial vehicles contracted for the second year running (-11% versus -14% in 2024) as diesel subsidies became targeted in June 2024.
In terms of production, just 747,780 vehicles were manufactured in Malaysia in 2025 (-5% versus 2024’s 790,347 units), demonstrating the might of fully-imported (CBU) EVs, for which demand spiked ahead of the year-end expiry of incentives.
What about the national versus non-national battle? The national team jumped 1.1% to 511,468 units (62.3% market share, up from 2024’s 61.9%) while the non-nationals were down 0.6% to 309,258 units (311,058 in 2024), mainly due to a lower commercial vehicle contribution (8% compared to 9%). MAA forecasts a slower 2026 with 790k units, but it was just as pessimistic last year when it expected 780k, and look what’s happened.
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Malaysia officially became ASEAN’s No. 1 vehicle market by sales volume (Total Industry Volume or TIV) for the first time, surpassing Indonesia.
Under Madani car prices going down the wazoo because of his election promise to lower car prices. He kept his promise so he must be reelected!
malaysia per-capita car purchase is 8x , yes eight times compared to neighbour indonesia. so our strong buying power is thanks to which PM and which gomen?
Time to put the voluntiary old car scrap policy, too many car on the road.
Yes, too many Wira, Waja, Myvi and Kancil with V12 sounding exhaust, 2nd hand tires, glue on bodykit, and 50sen brakes are prowling the roads.
I asked some of the P1 & P2 sales advisers about the RM4k govt incentive to trade in a 20+ year old clunker for a new P1/P2 car, which was announced during parliamentary budget speech last year, and they told me that they’re still waiting for the memo/announcement from their respective HQs.
Its interesting that rakyat keeps complaining about the economy and drop in affordability- we losing purchasing power, but we generated more spending than ever on cars.