Proton vs Perodua: And the Winner is…

 

For over a decade, Perodua lapped Proton so routinely that the only suspense was the size of the winning margin. But a change appears to be taking shape. In the first half of 2026, Proton registered 98,010 new vehicles, a jump of 40.5% and its best first half since 2002. Perodua still led comfortably with 158,295 units, but its sales slipped 4.7%.

 

A year ago, Perodua was outselling Proton by 2.4 cars to one. Today it is 1.6 to one, the closest the two have been since 2013. Together, the national brands now command 67% of the Malaysian market, leaving every foreign carmaker to squabble over the rest.

 

              

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org

 

Perodua’s cars are built on the bones of Japan’s Daihatsu, a Toyota subsidiary. Proton, meanwhile, has been 49.9% owned by China’s Geely since 2017, and its bestsellers began life as Geely models. The X50 born as the Binyue and the X70 as the Boyue. Strip away the badges and this is almost like a proxy war: Japanese car-making versus Chinese car-making, fought on Malaysian roads with Malaysian wallets as the prize.

 

If you go back to 2017, Proton was in the doldrums. Its market share near historic lows and its finances under strain. Then Geely took its stake, and the transformation has been remarkable. Proton closed 2025 with 157,976 units sold and a 19.4% market share, alongside record exports. It is now gunning for 200,000 units in 2026. In January, it posted its highest monthly sales in 15 years.

 

The sharpest weapon in its arsenal is electric. The Proton e.MAS 7, a twin of the Geely Galaxy E5, was Malaysia’s bestselling EV through 2025. The e.MAS brand was the fastest in the country, to cross 20,000 electrified vehicle sales. This is under seven months. The cheaper e.MAS 5 pulled in more than 10,000 bookings within weeks of launch.

 

In 2025, China exported 8.32 million vehicles, its third straight year as the world’s largest car exporter. BYD alone sold 4.6 million vehicles globally, more than Ford.

 

To its credit, Perodua is not standing still. In December 2025, it launched the QV-E, billed as Malaysia’s first homegrown EV, developed for RM800 million with over 100 local engineers working on it and priced at RM80,000 with a battery subscription plan. And Perodua’s fundamentals remain formidable. It sold a record 359,904 vehicles in 2025, making it the second biggest carmaker in Asean by sales, behind only Toyota. The Bezza, Axia and Myvi still own the affordable end of the market, and no one matches its cost discipline.

 

But notice the irony. The company built on Japanese engineering had to develop its own EV largely from scratch, because its Japanese partner had little to offer. Daihatsu has no ready-made passenger EV for Perodua to borrow, while Proton simply picks from Geely’s shelf.

Malaysians are getting better cars at better prices than at any point in our history, and the fight for our ringgit is forcing both companies to improve.

 

Proton’s Geely partnership has also brought real industrial capacity, with Malaysia’s first dedicated EV plant opening in Tanjung Malim in September 2025, inside an Automotive High-Tech Valley meant to anchor an entire supply chain.

 

The lesson of Japan, South Korea and China themselves is that every great car industry started by borrowing someone else’s homework. The trick is graduating from assembling other people’s ideas to generating your own, and the QV-E, whatever its commercial fate, shows the ambition is alive.

 

So, watch the sales charts closely over the next 18 months. If Proton keeps growing at this pace, 2027 could bring something once unthinkable: a Chinese-engineered car dethroning a Japanese-engineered one as Malaysia’s favourite.

 

After a decade of a one-horse race, the battle for Malaysia’s driveways is finally worth watching again. And whichever badge takes the chequered flag, the Malaysian driver wins. But for the Malaysian car sector to win, we need a eco-system that has the design, engineering and production capabilities of a fully localised Malaysian car. After 40 plus years, these two national cars still require protection. That’s a shame. Surely after 40 years, you should be able to do your own production and export unless you are Hindustan Motors (India) producing the Ambassador – which is no longer available.

 

Reference:

Proton vs Perodua: and the winner is… the Malaysian driver, K. Kathirgugan, FMT,
26 August 2026