2017 China Auto Sales Figures – By Brand (Brand Rankings)

2017 Chinese Automotive Sales by Brand – The Best-Selling Automotive Brands By Sales Volume

In 2017, the four-year streak of double digit growth of the Chinese domestic passenger car market ended as sales increased 2.6% to just over 24.2 million, down from +17.2% last year. This is the lowest growth rate in at least a decade and a half, possibly longer (we don’t have exact data from before 2003). Still, it is a new annual record as sales have almost doubled since 2011 (12,3 million) and more than quadrupled since 2008 (5.6 million).

Doomsayers have predicted a peak of the Chinese car market for years but has continued to defy gravity as growth in the big coastal cities indeed stalled but continued in the rural areas where car ownership is still behind and has plenty of room to grow. Despite that, sales are expected to be down slightly in the first few months of 2018 as the sales tax on vehicles with engines of 1.6 liters or smaller has been returned to its usual level of 10%, from 7.5% in 2017 and 5% from the second half of 2015. This subsidy had been put into place after sales dropped three consecutive months during uncertainty about a Chinese stock market crisis. It has mostly benefited domestic carmakers who have gained 4.5 percentage points of market share from 2015 to 2017. Chinese brands held a record 42.37% of the passenger market, up from 41.35% in 2016 and from 30.46% ten years ago, in 2007. Sales of domestic brand vehicles across all segments were up 5.2% in 2017, while sales of domestically produced cars from import brands increased by just 0.8%. Of those, the Japanese brands did the best at +12.6% to 4.27 million, compared to a gain of 3.6% for European brands to 5.49 million and +2.6% to 3.04 million for US brands.