New Car Sales Projection for 2026: Difficult to Reach 1 Million Units

KatadataOTO – Car sales in Indonesia have not been able to return to the one million unit mark. The last time this achievement was reached was in 2023, with exactly 1,005,802 units.

Last year, the figure was also predicted to only reach around 800 thousand units. Observers even assessed the realistic target to be between 730 thousand and 760 thousand units.

The uncertainty of automotive incentives in 2026 is also believed to be the cause of the sluggish sales of new cars in Indonesia.

“If it's true that automotive incentives are not provided this year, I see car sales will likely struggle to surge and have a greater chance of only moving slightly from 2025, or even stagnating again,” said Josua Pardede, Chief Economist at Permata Bank, to KatadataOTO recently.

Photo: KatadataOTO

However, Josua also highlighted other factors besides the absence of incentives or sales-boosting programs.

He emphasized that the fundamental problem is on the demand side, where public purchasing power is still weak and consumers are cautious about buying new cars.

In the first nine months of 2025, Joshua revealed there was an 11.3 percent decrease compared to the same period the previous year.

“At the same time, when consumers are under pressure, they downgrade to cheaper options. This is evident as used car financing continues to grow, while new car financing has slowed and even shrunk,” said Josua.

Many vehicles sold in large volumes domestically are products in the price segment below Rp 500 million.

That segment is considered sensitive to price changes. Therefore, government incentives become one of the many factors in maintaining vehicle prices.

For your information, retail sales of new cars (distribution from dealers to consumers) domestically for the January-November 2025 period were 739,977 units. 

Meanwhile, the wholesale figure, or shipments from factories to dealers, stood at 710,084 units. The slow growth led Gaikindo to revise its target from 850 thousand units to 780 thousand units.

Photo: KatadataOTO

This means new car sales in December 2025 must reach at least 70 thousand units to achieve Gaikindo's target.

This might be achievable considering the retail sales trend, which has been slowly improving since October.

For context, retail sales in October 2025 were 74,720 units. While in November 2025, the figure rose to 79,310 units.