For those who bought Year of Cars 2025, you’ll have seen a table that shows the top 10 in 2003, 2013 and 2023, though the last one was from a different source. There are new figures now based on units sold for 2024, detailed below. (Updated November 3, 2025, replacing Focus2move’s incorrect figures with those cited by manufacturers or known sources.)
| Toyota | 10·82 million |
| Volkswagen | 9·04 million |
| Hyundai | 7·19 million |
| Renault Nissan Mitsubishi | 6·56 million* |
| GM | 6·00 million |
| Stellantis | 5·53 million |
| Ford | 4·29 million** |
| BYD | 4·09 million** |
| Honda | 3·73 million* |
| Suzuki | 3·25 million |
* Mitsubishi and Honda figures based on units produced, not sold. ** Sourced from JATO Dynamics.
This makes for very interesting reading, not least the continued ascent of BYD, which can conceivably move up two positions for 2025. The 2023 figures had the Chinese car maker at 2·6 million units, so a jump of 1·49 million is impressive while many of the top 10 actually dropped. BYD and Suzuki gained noticeably here, one on the strength of EVs, the other on small cars—the latter was very predictable given economic shifts. Anyone who was caught unawares without budget offerings had a harder time in 2024, something we have been saying regularly since DaimlerChrysler got rid of Plymouth in 2001.
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