The road transport department (JPJ) has furnished its registration data for the month of February 2025, giving us a snapshot of how the automotive industry did last month. Here, we’re taking a look at the top 20 best-selling brands, and it’s no surprise who’s on top.
Yes, as has been the case for time immemorial, Perodua has taken a commanding lead with 31,382 vehicles registered in February, representing a sizeable 38.3% jump over the previous month. That’s almost three times its nearest challenger, Proton, which sold just 11,068 vehicles. Its 54,627-unit year-to-date figure paints a similar picture, being far more than double its fellow national carmaker’s 20,756 units.
Proton does at least hold a comfortable gap to Toyota, of which 7,837 units were registered last month, leading to a YTD figure of 15,407 units. Surprisingly, the company holds a razor-thin margin over arch-rival Honda, which managed to register 7,228 units. Sales of the H brand have rebounded from a low of 3,628 units in January, thanks to City sales more than doubling and the Civic getting a shot in the arm with the arrival of the recently-launched facelift.
The effect of a slow January means that Honda’s YTD registrations of 10,866 units trails that of Toyota, but that gap isn’t expected to grow significantly. Bear in mind that Toyota’s figures include not just commercial vehicles like the Hilux but also a significant amount of grey market “recon” units (last year, nearly 21% of T-badged cars were registered outside the brand’s official sales network, versus just over four per cent for Honda), meaning that Honda has likely overtaken Toyota as the overall non-national sales champion officially.
In a distant fifth sits Jaecoo, which overcame its previous month’s slump, with registrations more than doubling to 1,684 units. In the process it has overtaken Mitsubishi and Chery, the latter being particularly noteworthy given that Jaecoo currently sells just two models (J7 and Omoda C9) compared to its parent company’s three.
Completing the top ten are three brands within 62 units of each other, these being Mazda (645 units, 1,352 YTD), BYD (634 units, 1,139 YTD) and BMW (583 units, 1,184 YTD). So fine are the margins that comparatively strong January sales from 11th-placed Mercedes-Benz (546 units in February) meant it could hold on to ninth in the YTD standings (1,298 units).
The next five brands were in the same positions as they were in January (including Lexus, and we know an overwhelming majority of registrations each month are of recon cars). But by far the biggest gainer was Tesla, sales of which rebounded from a low of just 13 units in January to 443 units in February – proving that anti-Elon Musk sentiment was not a significant factor for its dismal performance the previous month. And that’s before deliveries of the facelifted Model Y, codenamed Project Juniper, kick off next month.
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