China's passenger car market grew by 8.9% in the first half of 2023
- China's passenger car market grew by 8.9% in the first half of 2023, compared to the first half of 2022, with a volume of 11,268,226 passenger cars. We should logically reach 24 million units over the whole of 2023. This is not a record as the Chinese market had exceeded a volume of 24 million units in 2016 (24.4 million) and in 2017 (24.7 million). 2023 should be the third best year for the Chinese market.
- By carmaker, the Volkswagen group (12% of the Chinese market) narrowly keeps its leading position that it has held since the 1990s, as Chinese BYD (11% of the market) made an extraordinary breakthrough in 2023 by doubling its sales (thanks to its different electric models) compared to last year. It is very likely that BYD will rise to the top spot before the end of the year. Four BYD models are also among the top 10 selling models in China in 2023. BYD seems to have completely ousted the Wuling HongGuang Mini EV which fell to 0.3% of the market in 2023! Behind Volkswagen and BYD, the other carmakers are very disconnected. Toyota (7.2% of the market) and the GM group (7% of the market) ex-second which lost 200,000 sales compared to 2022 (mainly the Wuling HongGuang Mini EV) slightly heads Geely (7%), Changan (6.8%) and Chery (6.2%). Tesla, which is progressing, is ninth with 4.2% of the Chinese market in 2023. Thanks to the strong growth of BYD, Chinese carmakers achieve a new record of 55% market share in China in the first half of 2023 (compared to 48% in 2022).
- BEVs represent 22.7% of the Chinese market in the first half of 2023. The best-selling model, all engines combined, is the Tesla Model Y (2.8% of the market), which is ahead of three BYD models and the Tesla Model 3 (1.4 % of the market).