Malaysians just cannot seem to get enough of new cars as the 2025 total industry volume (TIV) was just released by the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) and proved to be a new record once again with 820,752 units sold. The previous record was the 816,747 units sold in 2024, narrowly pipped by a measly 0.5%
Malaysians just cannot seem to get enough of new cars as the 2025 total industry volume (TIV) was just released by the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) and proved to be a new record once again with 820,752 units sold.
The previous record was the 816,747 units sold in 2024, narrowly pipped by a measly 0.5% last year. Not only is this the second consecutive year of breaking the 800k barrier, it is the fourth year in a row of consecutive growth since the pandemic.
Additionally, it appears the industry loves ending things on a high as December 2025 was a record for monthly sales, accruing 90,716 new cars, toppling the previous record of 81,735 units from December 2024 by almost 9,000 units.
What drove those insane figures? The MAA gives credit to the following reasons:
- solid economic growth
- growing domestic demand
- conducive financing
- lower unemployment rate
- socio-political stability,
- strong order backlogs
- recovering exports
- surging EV sales
- favourable promotions and rebates
While passenger vehicles grew by 13%, the targeted diesel subsidies implemented in June 2024 was a monkey wrench in the sales of commercial vehicles as the segment saw a drop for the second year, losing 11% over 2024.
Despite CKD figures dropping by 5% to 747,780 assembled locally (790,347 in 2024), the incentives for CBU EVs saw them more than compensate for the slack.
As for 2026, the MAA has forecasted a 3.8% drop for the TIV to 790,000 units with the primary reasons being the rising cost of living.
Nonetheless, the association has always practiced conservatism with its TIV predictions and even expected a drop for 2025. Therefore, we would not bet against a third straight year of leaving the 800k mark in the rear-view mirror, but perhaps not a new record.