^ lol, I was in the middle of writing my post as you posted! I did post about the
full-year 2025 results a while back. But yes, I was thinking of just quarterly updates from now on. There's just too much noise in the month-to-month data, and I figure folks probably don't need to read about our modest corner of the world market that often anyway.
Australia Q1 2026
By end 2025, an unprecedented three Chinese vehicle brands finished in Australia's Top 10: GWM, BYD & MG. With the rapid rise of Chery amidst declining sales for MG, the question going into 2026 was if could we potentially see
four Chinese brands in Australia's Top 10 in 2026? The answer, at least for Q1, is yes:
Q1 sales of selected brands, with brand rank and change YoY:
BYD: 17,541 sales, #6, up 100%
GWM: 14,878 sales, #7, up 29%
Chery: 11,736 sales, #9, up 94%
MG: 10,595 sales, #10, down 7%
(There are many other Chinese brands in Australia, but the volume drops off steeply from here, with the next highest being LDV at #19 with 3,264 sales.)
BYD launched Atto 1 (a.k.a. Seagull a.k.a. Dolphin Surf, not sure why they went with the most boring name) and Atto 2 here at the end of 2025, adding Sealion 5 and Sealion 8 in early 2026. BYD has also launched its separate Denza brand here from with B5, B8 and D9 vehicles, collecting 627 sales to date over two months. I think the below chart format has just about run its course as the number of models available continues to increase, but I will include it for the sake of completion. I have the per-model, per-month numbers here from launch to date so I can collate and present that information in a different form if folks would find that more interesting or useful.
March was a
for electrified vehicle sales and enquiries, for obvious reasons. Not too long ago, NEV sales were struggling to reach double digit share. In March, the split was 14.6% BEV and a further 7.6% PHEV! Needless to say, this bodes well for both BYD and other Chinese brands with strong NEV portfolios.
If we zoom out beyond brands to look at auto groups and the broader Australian market:
#1 Toyota (incl. Lexus): 47,324 sales
#2 Hyundai-Kia (incl. Genesis): 40,110 sales
#3 Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi: 22,446 sales
#4 Mazda 21,890 sales
#5 Ford 20,172 sales
#6 BYD (incl. Denza): 18,168 sales
#7 GWM: 14,878 sales
#8 Chery (incl. Omoda Jaecoo): 14,252 sales
#9 SAIC (MG, LDV): 13,859 sales
#10 Volkswagen (incl. Audi, Porsche, Skoda, Cupra, Bentley): 11,419 sales
...
#15(?) Geely (incl. Volvo, Zeekr, Polestar, Farizon, Lotus): 6,972 sales.
Toyota sales are down at the moment (-23% on the primary brand) mostly owing to RAV4 model changeover, expect numbers to pick up from April. The R-N-M alliance is more appropriately rendered as M-N-R in the Australian context. GWM as a "brand" listing already encapsulates Haval, Ora, Tank, etc. hence no change. Geely group sales are split fairly evenly between the three majors of Volvo, Geely and Zeekr, which is a creditable success for those latter brands that are only new here. Beyond the Chinese brands that have already "made it" in Australia, Geely and Zeekr are clearly the next two to keep an eye on.
It's not all good news: the recent implosion of the relationship between Xpeng and its former Australian distributor, which will now
, has the potential to undermine consumer confidence in Chinese brand vehicles in Australia. The major hurdle for Chinese brands here is in building consumer confidence in long-term reliability and support. This sort of thing does not help. Nor will the inevitable market failures to come...