Bad economy? New car sales in 2023 to exceed 720k says MAA

The Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) has projected that the county's new car sales figure for 2023 will end with yet another new record that will surpass 2022's figure of 720,658 units.

With Malaysia's new car sales number sitting at 718,748 units as of November 2023, it's already showing a lot of positive signs considering that it's 12% higher compared to the same period back in 2022.

Despite a slight slowdown of 4% from October to November, that's 71,908 units in November, and MAA projects that that figure won't be too far off at the end of December. With that being said, let's look at the most popular brands and models so far in 2023.

According to www.data.gov.my and its data collected from the Road Transport Department (JPJ), it's no surprise that the top three car brands here in Malaysia belong to Perodua, Proton, and Toyota.

As for the most popular models in the country (figures updated last on 1 September 2023), the top three spots on the podium are a clean sweep by Perodua and three of its model offerings - Bezza (56,735 units), Myvi (45,014 units), and Axia (44,722 units).

The top 10 models are unsurprisingly dominated by Perodua and Proton with a total of eight cars in the list. The only two non-national brands that broke into the top 10 are the Honda City sitting in P8 (18,647 units) and the Toyota Hilux in P9 (17,148 units).