New Vehicle Sales Hit New All-Time Record in 2025 at 820,752 Units – MAA

New vehicle sales have hit a new all-time high in 2025, with 820,752 units sold, according to the MAA.

Sales of new vehicles in Malaysia have recorded a new all-time high record last year, with a total of 820,752 units sold in 2025, according to the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA). Announced earlier today in its annual press conference, 2025 sales performance also marks the second year in a row the local total industry volume (TIV) has surpassed the 800,000-unit threshold.

Compared to 2024’s sales volume, 2025 saw a marginal 0.5% increase from 816,747 units recorded in the previous year. Other than the new all-time high record, 2025 also saw the highest monthly TIV on record, with 90,716 units sold in Dec 2025 alone, as well as the highest quarterly TIV record of 241,416 units in Q4 2025.

MAA attributes this TIV increase to several factors, including the strong order backlogs, favourable financing conditions following the reduction of the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) to 2.75% since July 2025, a stable socio-political environment, positive labour market conditions with the unemployment rate reaching an 11-year low of 2.9%, and successful launches of new BEV models, including offerings from national automakers.

A further look into 2025’s TIV tells us that while passenger vehicle sales rose by 1.6% to 759,098 units last year, sales for commercial vehicles have decreased by 11.4%, falling from 69,567 units in 2024 to 61,654 units in 2025. That said, this drop is still less than what was recorded back in 2024, when commercial vehicle sales dropped by 14% from the previous year.

Now focusing on the performance of each brand, the combined market share for both the national automakers has increased by 0.4% to 62.3%, or 511,468 units, with Perodua still dominating the sales with a new all-time high sales record of 359,904 units, holding approximately 43.9% of the market share.

However, the same cannot be said for the non-national marques, as they have collectively registered a lower sales volume of 309,258 units, or a 0.6% decline, in 2025 compared to a year ago, mainly attributed to the lower contribution from the commercial vehicles segment.

What’s more concerning is the total industry production (TIP), with MAA recording a 5% decline in TIP for 2025, going from 790,347 units in 2024 to 747,780 units last year. This slightly growing gap between TIV and TIP is attributed to the higher imported (CBU) BEV registrations in 2025, with the expiry of CBU BEV incentives on Dec 31 last year further accelerating the sales and demand for these BEVs.

Looking ahead, MAA has forecasted the local TIV to reach 790,000 units in 2026, or a 3.8% reduction in volume compared to the previous year, citing several potential downside risks such as moderate expected GDP growth of 4.0% to 4.5% in 2026, global trade uncertainties including “flip-flop” US trade policies, inflationary pressures, expiry of EV-related tax incentives, and disposable income constraints due to rising cost of living.

Despite these challenges, the association also highlighted several positive factors that could support market resilience in 2026, such as continued low unemployment, strong demand for affordable and fuel-efficient vehicles, particularly from national automakers, the development of local EV ecosystem, the introduction of new brands and models, as well as attractive promotional strategies and value-added services offered by automakers.