2018 Chinese Automotive Sales by Brand – The Best-Selling Automotive Brands By Sales Volume
In 2018, light vehicle sales in China declined for the first time since 1990, as 23.27 million passenger cars were sold, 4% fewer than in 2017. Including mini-buses and light and heavy commercial vehicles, the total car market in China declined 2.8% to 28.1 million in 2018. Sales of new energy vehicles (battery electric, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell vehicles) jumped 62% to 1.26 million, with a share of 4.5% of the total car market. Of these, 984,000 were EVs, 271,000 were plug-in hybrids and 1,527 were fuel cell vehicles.
Domestic brands declined the most at -5.8% while sales of domestically produced cars from import brands declined by just 2.6%. As a result, after four consecutive years of growing their share of their domestic market, Chinese brands lose ground agains foreign rivals again. In 2014, domestic brands held just over one third (33.6%) of their home market, a share they’ve managed to grow to 42.4% in 2017, before dipping to 41.6% in 2018. Among import brands, the US is the big loser with a decline of 18.9% mostly due to sinking sales at Ford. American brands now hold 10.6% of the Chinese car market, the lowest share since 2003. European and Japanese brands actually managed to improve their sales of domestically built cars in China, by 1.3% and 2.5% respectively. European brands now hold 23.9% of the market, back to their 2015 but still below the record of 25.9% in 2014. Japanese brands improved their share to 18.8%, the highest since 2012 but still well below their record of 27.7% in 2008. Even South Korean brands saw a light rebound of 2.7% in 2018 after suffering a 35% dip in 2017. Their share returned to just above 5% fo the market, still the lowest since 2003 as well.
