JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's car sales in February rose 2.2% year-on-year, the first growth recorded since June 2023, data from the country's car association showed on Tuesday.

Car sales in Southeast Asia's largest economy have been facing challenges due to weak spending power and a tendency to hold off car purchases during the national elections last year, association officials told local media.

The number of cars sold by companies was 72,295 units in February, according to the association's data. A breakdown of the sales was not available on the association's website.

Last month, a large autoshow was held in the country, where vehicle sales rose 19% year-on-year to 8 trillion rupiah ($490 million), according to Bisnis.com.

A number of Chinese electric vehicle brands have entered the Indonesian market in recent years, including top EV carmaker BYD that currently holds around 36% of the market share in battery-based EV sales in the country.

($1 = 16,405.0000 rupiah)

(Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman and Stanley Widianto; Editing by Tom Hogue and Mrigank Dhaniwala)