Kuala Lumpur: Sales of Proton and Perodua cars will continue to dominate the domestic market at around 61 per cent for the period 2020 to 2025, the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI) said.
It said that apart from the two national manufacturers, four Japanese vehicle brands, namely Toyota, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi, dominated the domestic market by up to 26 per cent in 2020 and increased to about 30 per cent in 2021 and 2022.
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However, it began to show a downward trend on average to 26.2 per cent from 2023 to 2025.
“Although the overall market share for the four Japanese vehicle brands was almost the same for the years 2021 and 2022, the total vehicle sales value for all brands increased by RM9.5 billion.
“It shows that there is a shift in consumer demand towards higher value and high-tech vehicle segments, including the sports utility vehicle (SUV) segment as well as models with more premium specifications,” it said in reply on the parliament website this week to a question from Oscar Ling Chai Yew (PH-Sibu) on the total value compared to the number of annual car sales of Proton, Perodua, Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi and Chery from 2020 to 2025.
Meanwhile, MITI said the overall sales volume for all Japanese brands will start to show a downward trend in 2023, which may be influenced by the government’s policy to encourage the use of electric vehicles (EVs) through the provision of tax incentives for EVs starting in 2022.
“These incentives have attracted more new players, especially EV manufacturers from China including global brands such as Tesla and BYD to enter the local market.
“This situation directly affects Japanese vehicle manufacturers which do not offer EV models,” it said.
MITI said Chery also entered the local market in 2023 by starting local assembly operations at the Inokom factory, and showed a significant increase in sales from 4,649 units in 2023 to 20,427 units (2024), and jumped to 33,136 units (2025).
“Based on Chery’s annual sales value record, the average sales value per unit of Chery vehicles also increased from wRM116,000 to RM127,000.
“This trend supports the finding that the shift in consumer demand to a more valuable and high-tech vehicle segment is not only occurring among buyers of Japanese brands, but also involves buyers of China brands,” he said.
