UAE New Car Sales, First Half 2026: Market Recovery Takes Shape

Abu Dhabi: As we have crossed into the second half of the year, this is the right time to look at the sales trends of the first half of 2026. And the number tells the story clearly, which basically has been a hard one for new car sales in the UAE. The fallout from the US-Iran conflict had dampened the car buyers' confidence rather severely; this is reflected in the number quite evidently. But there is a second story sitting underneath that headline, one about which brands are losing ground and which ones are quietly picking up the slack. 

Toyota and Nissan, the two names that have been de facto market leaders for decades, are both losing share faster than the overall slowdown. Meanwhile, a handful of Chinese brands are turning a difficult year into an opportunity, and one of them briefly outsold everyone else in May.

A Slow Recovery

The worst of the slump came early. March was the roughest month by far, and things have been improving steadily since, even if the market is still well below where it was a year ago.

Month	Year-on-Year Change
March	- 47.2 percent
April	- 41.9 percent
May	- 35.3 percent
June	- 22.8 percent

That trend line matters more than the overall half-year number. A market that is recovering month by month tells a different story than one stuck at the bottom, and dealers will take that direction over a flat line any day.

Leaders Losing Share

Toyota and Nissan are still the two biggest names in the country by volume, but both had a rougher first half than the market as a whole. Toyota's share slipped to just under 22 percent, down from 24 percent a year earlier, and Nissan dropped to around 13 percent from close to 15 percent. Losing that much ground in six months is not something either brand will shrug off easily, especially with new entrants moving in fast behind them.

Mitsubishi, by contrast, barely moved and held onto third place, a quiet result that looks a lot better once you see how much everyone around it dropped.

Growth of Chinese Brands 

Like a now regular pattern, this is where the first half of 2026 gets properly interesting. While most established brands fell by at least a fifth, a group of Chinese manufacturers pushed the other way entirely.

• Jetour grew 30 percent and is now firmly established as a top-five brand in the country.
• BYD entered the rankings for the first time at sixth place, a strong debut for a brand that barely had a UAE presence a couple of years ago.
• Haval climbed to seventeenth position with growth of over 13 percent, one of the few brands outside the top tier to gain ground.
• Tank rose to twenty-second place with growth above 38 percent.
• Denza, another newcomer, cracked the rankings at twenty-third place.
• Yangwang, BYD's luxury arm, sold just 14 units, a reminder that not every new name is chasing volume.

None of these brands are close to challenging Toyota or Nissan on overall sales yet. But six months ago, several of them were not even on the list, and that pace of change is worth watching closely over the rest of the year.

Patrol Reclaims Top

Among individual models, the biggest shakeup came at the very top. The Nissan Patrol pushed past the Toyota Hilux to reclaim the best-selling model spot, even though its own sales fell by more than a quarter. That says as much about how badly the Hilux dropped as it does about the Patrol holding steady.

The real headline-grabber sits in third place. The Jetour T2, a car that did not exist in this market before 2024, briefly topped the entire sales chart outright in May, a first for the brand anywhere in the region. Its position has cooled slightly since, but it remains firmly inside the top three for the half year.

Rank	Model	Half-Year Trend
1	Nissan Patrol	Down, but still on top
2	Toyota Hilux	Down sharply
3	Jetour T2	Topped the chart outright in May
4	Mitsubishi Outlander	Up sharply, biggest mover in the top ten
5	Toyota Land Cruiser	Down

Top Highlights 

A few individual results deserve a mention on their own, since they say more about shifting buyer habits than the overall totals do.

• The Mitsubishi Outlander more than doubled its sales and jumped ten places to reach fourth overall, the single biggest climb inside the top ten.
• The Jetour T1 grew nearly four times over and jumped 85 places to land at fourteenth, one of the sharpest rises anywhere in the rankings.
• The Toyota Yaris Sedan climbed 22 spots to fifteenth, proof that even inside a struggling Toyota lineup, some models are still finding buyers.
• The Nissan Sunny and Toyota Camry both lost ground but held their losses to well below the market average, a sign that loyal buyers in these segments are sticking around.
• The Jetour G700 is the best-selling recently launched model in the country, ahead of the BYD Song Plus, Mitsubishi Destinator and BYD Seal 7.

In Summary

Looking at the number, it is quite obvious that The first half of 2026 will not go down as a good year for new car sales in the UAE, and the war-driven slump is real. 

But the direction of travel from March through June suggests the worst has already passed, and the brands gaining ground while the market recovers are not the ones you would have expected a few years back. Toyota and Nissan are not going anywhere; their networks and reputations run too deep for that. What is changing is the space around them. 

If Buyers who once had two or three obvious choices now have a real spread of options, and brands like Jetour, BYD and Mitsubishi are proving that a tough market can still produce real winners. The rest of the year will show whether that shift keeps building or fades once conditions settle back to normal.

Also Read: Hyundai IONIQ 5 or Kia EV6? The Electric Crossover Battle Every UAE Buyer Should Read