Kenanga Investment Bank has changed its 790,000-unit 2026 Malaysia total industry volume (TIV) projection to 800,000 units, Bernama reports. This mirrors the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA)’s latest forecast, which was announced on July 21.
It said in a July 22 note that it expected a resilient second half – despite tighter EV policies and an 11%-smaller commercial vehicle market – brought upon by more locally-assembled (CKD) EVs and stronger hybrid vehicle demand. According to the MAA, Malaysia bought 385,353 new vehicles (+3% year-on-year, or YoY), including 26,192 EVs (+106% YoY) and 25,590 hybrids (+43% YoY), in the first half of 2026. Will this be the country’s first year in which more EVs than hybrids are sold?
“Our thesis for 2026 TIV encompasses a trend of discounts and rebates as a strategy to gain a head start in capturing market share, the new open-market-value (OMV) excise duty regulation which will be implemented gradually (delayed to Jan 2027 and potentially beyond) and a pre-tax cost, insurance and freight (CIF) floor price of RM200,000 for imported EVs implemented in July 2026,” Kenanga Investment Bank said.
It added that the increasing localisation of Chinese carmakers, sustained demand for affordable vehicles, new hire-purchase loan policies, a stable labour market and more new models should help prop up the 2026 TIV.
“In general, the industry’s earnings visibility is still good, backed by a booking backlog of 152,000 units as at end-June 2026 which is higher than the average booking of 140,000 units in 2025, largely due to the addition of the all-new Proton Saga, which contributed 90,000 units to the backlog, although this was limited by production capacity.
“More than half of the backlog is made up of new models, alluding to the appeal of new models to car buyers,” it said, adding that EV makers are working on clearing fully-imported (CBU) stock while transitioning to CKD. Perodua’s current backlog is reportedly at around 43,000 (all models). Our car-crazy little country once had a backlog of half a million bookings – Malaysia dan kereta, berpisah tiada.
