In 2025, China’s new energy vehicle market reached 16.49 million sales, with domestic sales accounting for 13.875 million units, up 19.8% year over year.
New energy vehicles now account for 50.8% of the Chinese auto market. So with EVs and other new energy vehicles now representing a bigger piece of the pie than traditional gasoline cars, the obvious question is
Who is actually taking that market share
According to sales data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, ranked by automaker group, the answer is pretty clear
BYD remains the undisputed number one
Geely and Chery are right behind it, although they are still some distance away from BYD
SAIC Changan and Dongfeng ranked third through fifth, although because these numbers are calculated at the group level, their joint venture brands also contribute to the total Of course, all of these major state owned auto groups have been shifting their focus toward their own domestic brands and new energy vehicles
And the old idea of putting “new forces” into a separate category is becoming less meaningful Zero Run has already entered the top ten while XPeng Xiaomi and Li Auto ranked 11th through 13th respectively
But the ranking itself only tells part of the story
Some companies are simply defending their existing market position BYD for example grew 7.8% Others are growing explosively from a much smaller base Xiaomi was up an incredible 387.9% Meanwhile some companies are starting to lose momentum Tesla for example declined 7.1%
So rather than simply looking at the rankings I think it is more interesting to divide the top 15 companies into three groups high growth moderate growth and negative growth and look at what is actually driving their performance
More importantly what might this tell us about where these companies are heading in 2026
01
The High Growth Group Traditional Automakers Finally Commit to EVs While New Entrants Find Their Niche
One of the biggest stories in China’s new energy vehicle market in 2025 was the number of companies that managed to achieve explosive growth
Some were traditional automakers that finally made a serious push into new energy vehicles and started seeing the results Others were newer companies that found the right market positioning and were able to scale rapidly once they found their niche
Among the traditional automakers Geely stands out in particular
2025 was a turning point for Geely as new energy vehicles became one of the main engines of the company’s growth
Geely Group sold around 2.07 million new energy vehicles in 2025 an astonishing 78.9% increase from the previous year New energy vehicles also accounted for more than 56% of its total sales up from less than 40% in 2024
In other words Geely has gone from a company where gasoline and new energy vehicles existed side by side to one where new energy vehicles have become the dominant force
A big part of that success came from a much more focused product strategy
Its Galaxy lineup alone sold around 1.235 million vehicles in 2025 surpassing the one million unit target and making it one of the fastest growing new energy brands in China to reach that milestone
Models such as the Xingyuan Galaxy E5 Galaxy L6 Galaxy A7 Xingyue 7 and Xingyao 8 are positioned across different price segments and compete directly with some of BYD’s most popular models including the Seagull Yuan Plus Qin Plus Qin L Song Pro and Han
The strategy is relatively straightforward
Use competitive pricing and a wide range of products to attack the exact market segments where BYD has traditionally been strongest
And in 2025 that strategy clearly started to work
Geely’s early multi brand strategy eventually exposed one of its biggest weaknesses As the company expanded across multiple brands resources became increasingly fragmented and overlapping investments started to create more internal competition than value By the end of 2024 Geely was ready for a major strategic reset and the Taizhou Declaration marked a clear turning point
The company moved to simplify its brand structure including taking Zeekr private and pushing forward with the integration of Zeekr and Lynk & Co The goal was straightforward to reduce internal competition cut unnecessary duplication and make each brand’s positioning much clearer
The result has been a significant focus on both cost reduction and efficiency Geely is now positioned toward the mainstream mass market while Zeekr is being pushed further into the premium segment
By the end of 2025 Zeekr was showing signs of becoming a major new growth engine for the group Monthly sales broke through 28000 units in November and exceeded 30000 units in December The Zeekr 9X also topped China’s large SUV sales rankings for two consecutive months
At the same time Geely’s extensive dealership and distribution network allowed the company to capture more of the benefits from China’s trade in subsidies and replacement incentives Even amid an increasingly aggressive price war Geely was able to maintain relatively strong product competitiveness
SAIC also had a strong year in new energy vehicles In 2025 SAIC sold around 1.55 million new energy vehicles representing a 31% increase from the previous year
This growth was not simply the result of launching a few new models It came after a series of structural changes that began in the second half of 2024 including the integration of its domestic brands the creation of a larger passenger vehicle business unit and major advances in areas such as batteries electric drive systems and intelligent driving
At the same time SAIC began pushing its overseas strategy into a new phase with its Global Localization strategy Instead of simply exporting finished vehicles the company is increasingly trying to expand its entire value chain overseas
Taken together these changes have given SAIC a stronger foundation for growth and show how some of China’s traditional automakers are gradually moving from simply adding EV models to fundamentally restructuring their businesses around the new energy era
Among the newer EV players Leapmotor was arguably the biggest surprise of 2025 The company delivered around 597000 vehicles during the year up 1047 percent and comfortably surpassed its original target of 500000 units
The key to Leapmotor’s success has been the combination of in house development across the entire vehicle platform and an aggressive value for money strategy Its B and C series cover the mainstream 70000 to 200000 yuan price range allowing the company to compete directly in the same territory as BYD and other market leaders As production scales up the company is also benefiting from economies of scale which should continue to improve its competitiveness
Strategic investment from FAW and Stellantis has also helped provide a more stable ownership structure and stronger financial support for technology development and capacity expansion This gave Leapmotor more room to compete aggressively while also making progress toward profitability
XPeng had an equally impressive comeback in 2025 Deliveries reached around 429000 vehicles up 1259 percent year over year
A major part of that turnaround came from its strength in intelligent driving XPeng has been refining its product lineup introducing more affordable versions while continuously upgrading its driver assistance systems This allowed the company to target one of the biggest trends in the Chinese auto market the growing demand for smarter and more convenient driving experiences
Then there is Xiaomi Auto which represents one of the most impressive examples of a new player entering the automotive industry from outside the traditional car business Annual sales surpassed 400000 units making Xiaomi one of the fastest rising names among China’s new EV brands
In an era where attention and traffic are increasingly valuable Xiaomi has clearly benefited from its enormous existing consumer ecosystem and brand recognition Its founder Lei Jun has also built a powerful personal brand around the company and has quickly become one of the most recognizable figures in China’s automotive industry
But 2025 was not all smooth sailing for Xiaomi Auto The company faced a significant amount of criticism and controversy throughout the year which created potential challenges for its brand reputation and consumer confidence Those controversies are certainly a risk but they could also become an opportunity for Xiaomi to improve its products quality control and customer experience
The big questions for 2026 are whether Xiaomi’s upcoming range extended range models can repeat the success of its earlier products and whether the company can fully rebuild consumer confidence after the controversies
We will have to wait and see
02
The Slow Growth Group When Existing Advantages Start to Fade
Not every automaker managed to keep pace with the overall growth of China’s EV market in 2025
Some companies still recorded positive growth but their expansion was significantly slower than the industry average creating a growing sense of stagnation
The underlying problems are fairly similar across this group Slow product updates weaker market positioning and insufficient investment in new technologies are starting to expose the limits of their existing strategies
Great Wall Motor is a good example Its total sales increased only 733 percent in 2025 while new energy vehicle sales reached around 403700 units up 2544 percent
The problem is partly a result of its strategic positioning Great Wall has focused heavily on higher margin segments Instead of competing directly in the mainstream pure EV market or the rapidly growing plug in hybrid and extended range segments the company has concentrated on areas such as off road vehicles MPVs and premium SUVs
That strategy can protect margins and differentiate the brand but it also means Great Wall is deliberately staying away from some of the largest and fastest growing parts of the Chinese EV market
BYD meanwhile remained the global leader in new energy vehicle sales with around 4.602 million vehicles sold in 2025 up 78 percent from the previous year It also achieved a major milestone as its pure EV sales surpassed Tesla for the first time
Overall BYD managed to defend its core market through the Dynasty and Ocean series while Fangchengbao performed particularly well Denza also began gaining momentum and Yangwang successfully raised its profile in the premium segment
But there is one important warning sign
BYD’s 2025 growth rate was its slowest in nearly five years
That suggests the company may be running into a ceiling in the domestic market
Brands such as Geely Galaxy and Leapmotor have increasingly targeted BYD’s core segments with similarly positioned products and aggressive pricing taking away some of the market that once belonged almost exclusively to models such as the BYD Seagull and Dolphin
The contrast between BYD’s domestic and overseas performance is particularly interesting
While growth in China has started to slow BYD’s overseas exports exploded in 2025 surpassing one million vehicles compared with around 410000 in 2024
As BYD continues expanding internationally higher margins in overseas markets could become increasingly important to the company’s overall growth and profitability in the years ahead
BYD’s growth is also supported by its deep vertical integration Its in house battery and power electronics capabilities help reduce exposure to fluctuations in component costs while factories in Brazil and Thailand are further accelerating the company’s global expansion
03
The Negative Growth Group When Strategy Loses Momentum
In 2025 some automakers actually saw their sales decline year over year
The reasons are different from company to company but the common thread is a combination of weak strategic continuity slow execution and a delayed response to changes in the market
GAC’s new energy vehicle sales fell to around 437000 units in 2025 down 33 percent from the previous year This was also the first year of its so called Panyu Action plan but sales remained under pressure
Part of the problem was the major organizational and brand adjustments taking place during the year which made it difficult to maintain strategic continuity and execute new initiatives quickly enough
Aion one of GAC Group’s main new energy brands sold around 290000 vehicles in 2025 a 22.62 percent decline from the previous year
GAC also struggled to make a breakthrough in the premium market
Its partnership with Huawei is a good example of this situation GAC was one of the earlier traditional automakers to move toward cooperation with Huawei but the company ultimately struggled to turn that early move into a meaningful advantage
Its new premium brand Aito Horizon which was developed in cooperation with Huawei represents another attempt to move upmarket
But this time the stakes are much higher
Whether this partnership succeeds or fails is no longer just a question for one brand It could have a major impact on whether GAC can stabilize its position in the second half of China’s EV transition and successfully break through its current strategic bottleneck
The Chinese auto market is moving extremely quickly and simply having a new product or a strong technology partner is no longer enough The real challenge is whether traditional automakers can execute quickly enough maintain a clear strategy and turn those advantages into actual sales and market share
Tesla sold around 852000 vehicles in 2025 down 71 percent from the previous year making it one of the few major automakers to post negative growth
The biggest problem for Tesla is increasingly its product lineup
Its core models have gone for years without meaningful changes to their overall design or major features while Chinese automakers are now refreshing their models at an incredibly fast pace with some brands launching major updates every six months and completely new generations roughly every year
That difference in product cycle has gradually weakened Tesla’s competitiveness in the Chinese market
At the same time Tesla’s previous advantages in local production and supply chain cost control are becoming less distinctive As Chinese EV manufacturers continue pushing prices lower Tesla has had to cut prices repeatedly putting increasing pressure on margins
Its autonomous driving technology was supposed to become another major source of growth but commercialization has not progressed as quickly as expected and it has yet to become a meaningful new growth engine for the company
Li Auto faced an even more difficult year
The company delivered around 406000 vehicles in 2025 down 18.8 percent from the previous year
The biggest issue is that its traditional strength in the extended range EV market has come under increasing pressure
The basic technology behind range extended vehicles has a relatively low barrier to entry and many of the features that once made Li Auto stand out such as the spacious family focused interior and the famous fridge TV and large sofa concept have been quickly copied by competitors
Li Auto is now being squeezed from both sides
Huawei backed brands such as Aito have put pressure on the technology side while companies like Leapmotor are competing aggressively on price and value
As a result the market that once gave Li Auto a clear advantage is becoming increasingly crowded
Its transition toward pure EVs has also faced several obstacles
Li Auto entered the pure EV market later than companies such as NIO and XPeng and currently has only a small number of pure electric models including the MEGA i6 and i8
That makes it difficult to compete against rivals using a much broader product strategy and launching models across almost every major segment
The company has also spent considerable energy changing its strategic direction
Over the past three years Li Auto shifted from trying to learn from Huawei’s management approach back toward its own OKR based system The resulting management changes created additional uncertainty and affected the pace of product development and production ramp up
The financial impact became increasingly visible in 2025 when Li Auto recorded a quarterly net loss of more than 600 million yuan in the third quarter marking its first quarterly loss since the third quarter of 2022
For Li Auto the challenge going into 2026 is no longer simply about selling more cars
It is about finding a new growth engine before its original competitive advantage disappears completely
2025 is now history and in the end there is probably no need to put too much weight on the ups and downs of a single year
Just look at the three major Chinese EV startups NIO XPeng and Li Auto After several years of strong growth Li Auto started to lose momentum while XPeng and NIO finally began showing signs of a comeback
When looking at the industry from a longer term perspective annual sales growth matters less than the underlying strengths of each company
The companies that are likely to survive and thrive are the ones with strong technological capabilities a healthy corporate culture strong execution and most importantly the ability to recognize mistakes adapt and keep improving
Another important change in 2025 was that both the industry as a whole and individual companies started paying more attention to what could be called high quality growth
There has been growing recognition that simply chasing sales numbers through aggressive marketing endless price cuts and increasingly intense competition is not a sustainable strategy
That shift in thinking may actually be more important than the sales rankings themselves
With a clearer understanding of what sustainable growth should look like and a broader consensus across the industry 2026 may not deliver the kind of explosive growth we have seen in previous years
And that is probably okay
The market is entering a more mature stage and rather than chasing growth at any cost companies will have to prove that they can build better products operate more efficiently and create sustainable long term value
High growth may be becoming a thing of the past but with the industry becoming more mature we can face 2026 with a lot more confidence and a much clearer sense of what really matters
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