Most of the names on this list are to be expected, but there are a few surprises in the midst too!

Another year has since come and gone, but before closing off 2024 for good, here’s just a quick look at the 100 best-selling cars in Malaysia within the last 12 months.

Editor’s Note: Now if being entirely honest here, the following list that was compiled using data collated by the Department of Statistics Malaysia actually instead shows the top 100 cars that were actually registered over here over the past year. This therefore means it does count both official and grey imports, but don’t let that get in the way of what is a rather fascinating read!

Some Automacha Observations: 

• Over 840,000 cars registered in Malaysia over the 12 months of 2024. 

• Top 3 Peroduas (Bezza, Axia and Myvi) alone account for over 30% of the total number of cars registered, among the top 100 cars registered in Malaysia in 2024

• Despite everyone being shocked at how a CR-V can now touch RM 200,000, this Honda SUV still managed to outsell Proton X70 by over 2,600 units in 2024.

• Just to demonstrate how dominant the Hailak is in the pickup segment, 26,738 Toyota Hilux pickups were registered in Malaysia in 2024. This figure is to be nearly 5,000 more than the next four best-selling pickups (Mitsubishi Triton, Isuzu D-Max, Ford Ranger and Nissan Navara) combined.

• Over 15,000 Toyota Alphards were registered in 2024 alone, which puts it just below the Perodua Aruz as being the top-selling >5 seater in Malaysia. What more too is that figure does not include its Vellfire counterpart, which if included adds another 3,500 units to its tally. Most of these luxury MPVs are of course to be arriving as grey market imports. 

• The Chery Omoda 5 was to be Malaysia’s best-selling Chinese car for 2024 (not including the Proton X50 of course). This comes despite the various scandals that cropped up for this SUV earlier in the year. 

• The Toyota Voxy 49th most-registered car over here in 2024, even though it is not even brought in officially by Toyota. 

• The best selling car in the world, the Toyota Corolla, languishes in this list at a lowly 64th place, with it being outsold by the Honda Civic by a margin of nearly 12:1. The Corolla Cross SUV however is to be one place higher than the Civic in the standings.

• In spite of it only arriving in late July, Jaecoo has still managed to shift nearly 7,000 units of its J7 locally. It would therefore not be surprising to see it potentially be on par sales-wise with the Toyota Corolla Cross come 2025.

• While the BYD Atto 3 is to be the top-selling BYD and EV in Malaysia, what is perhaps more staggering is the knowledge that Nissan’s (antiquated) Serena somehow quietly manages to come in one place higher than the Chinese e-SUV.

• BMW sold more 3-Series than Nissan sold Almeras over here in 2024. In fact, BYD managed to shift nearly twice as many Seal EVs than Nissan had managed to sell Almeras last year.

• Grey importers managed to register as many Toyota Land Cruisers as Kia sold Carnivals over here in 2024.

• Porsche sold more Cayennes over here in 2024 than Volkswagen sold Tiguans.

• Despite what seems to be doom and gloom over at Subaru, there were still nearly 600 registrations for its antiquated XV and Forester, which is more than could be said for the brand new Peugeot 408.

• There are somehow still over 600 registrations for the over decade-old Nissan X-Trail in 2024.

• Despite the GWM Tank 300 being the bigger and more luxurious off-roading vehicle, this still hasn’t stopped the plucky Suzuki Jimny from out-registering it over here by a factor of 2:1 (when factoring in the Sierra variant as well). In fact, Land Rover Defender registrations (nearly all of which is admittedly also from the grey market) has surpassed the Tank 300 registrations in 2024.

• More Toyota Hiace vans were registered in Malaysia in 2024 than Toyota Camrys.