2024's top 20 best-selling car brands in Malaysia: Who gained and who lost ground, we ranked them

Hans
Hans · 2025-01-27 16:22:24

2024 is a year that many in the automotive industry would rather forget. Except for Perodua and Honda, all other mainstream car brands – defined as brands selling more than 10,000 cars annually – experienced a decline in sales.

Although Malaysia’s total new car sales grew by 2.1% last year, reaching a record high of 816,747 units, much of the increase was driven by Perodua, which achieved an 8.4% growth to set a new sales record of 358,102 units.

Nearly every other major brand saw a decline in sales.

Among mainstsream non-national brands, only Honda managed to improve its 2024 sales

Chinese brands like BYD, GWM, Chery, and Jaecoo had a good year, but most – except for BYD – only began introducing their mainstream models last year, making year-on-year comparisons inconclusive.

Further below is a list of the top 20 car brands in Malaysia for 2024.

Malaysia lacks a centralized source for vehicle sales data, as the Competition Commission (unwisely) believes that sharing such data violates the Competition Act 2010. Consequently, the Malaysian Automotive Association no longer shares its compiled data with the public.

As an alternative, sales figures are now derived from JPJ’s vehicle registration data, which is publicly accessible (ironically, no objections from the Competition Commission?), or from the car companies’ own announcements.

Neither source provides a completely accurate picture. Company announcements often report wholesale figures (vehicles delivered to dealers, not actual sales to customers), and in the case of Proton, include export figures.

JPJ’s data cannot be taken at face value, as many commercial vehicles are not included, and the figures are inflated by recon units.

Meanwhile, JPJ’s registration data excludes commercial panel vans like the Daihatsu GranMax or Nissan NV200 and is inflated by the registration of parallel-imported (reconditioned) vehicles.

JPJ’s data also omits lorries and prime movers, leading to underreporting of Isuzu’s sales by approximately 6,000 to 7,000 units. Since Isuzu Malaysia didn’t announce its 2024 results, these figures are estimates.

Where possible, sub-brands are split for accuracy. For example, Lexus and MINI figures are separated from Toyota and BMW, respectively.

Given these challenges, the figures presented here, adjusted to account for the above factors, are the next best alternative.

These reasons also explain why the figures presented here may differ from those published by other sources.

Top 20 car brands in Malaysia, 2024 (units)
Brand20242023Diff.
Perodua1358,102330,3258.4%
Proton147,787150,974-2.2%
Toyota1100,680150,974-5.2%
Honda181,60080,0002.0%
Mitsubishi16,16421,716-25.6%
Mazda514,80019,700-24.9%
Chery12,6994,503182.0%
BMW110,50011,699-10.2%
BYD8,5704,47091.7%
Mercedes2<8,000<12,000-33.3%
Nissan37,3169,563-23.5%
Jaecoo6,9882N/A
Isuzu46,8479,557-28.4%
Ford6,1318,853-30.7%
Tesla55,1241,513238.7%
GWM2,128499326.5%
Volvo1,9642,699-27.2%
VW1,7992,788-35.5%
Lexus1,6201,901-14.8%
MINI11,4001,700-17.6%

Notes: 

  1. Figures from company announcements.
  2. Mercedes-Benz figures are based on estimates. JPJ data is inflated by reconditioned (recon) units. Mercedes-Benz Malaysia does not announce its sales figures.
  3. Nissan’s figures, including the NV200, were provided by RHB Research.
  4. Isuzu figures include only pick-up trucks. JPJ data excludes sales of lorries and prime movers, which are worth around 6,000 to 7,000 units annually.
  5. Estimates, adjusted to exclude recon units.
  6. Percentages highlighted in blue are inflated by low-base effect. Comparisons are invalid.

Subaru finished just outside the Top 20, with 1,280 units sold (estimated), down 26.9%.

Kia had 1,274 units sold, down 46.7%. 

MG, which won’t reach its first full-year sales until March 2025, ended last year with 1,156 units sold.

Peugeot sold 1,108 units, down 25.8%.

Hans

Hans Head of Content

Over 15 years of experience in automotive, from product planning, to market research, to print and digital media. Garages a 6-cylinder manual RWD but buses to work.

Proton
Perodua
Honda
Toyota
Nissan
Mazda
Mercedes-Benz
BMW
Volvo
Ford
Hyundai
Kia