Western and Chinese carmakers in China: a new paradigm I. The inevitable decline of non-Chinese carmakers in China
- Among the ten largest non-Chinese carmakers established in China, only two have managed to make progress on the Chinese market over the past five years: Toyota and Tesla.
- The other eight (Volkswagen, GM, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai-Kia, Ford, Mazda and Stellantis) are inexorably declining, due to strong competition from Chinese carmakers, and from Toyota and Tesla. Some like Mazda or Stellantis are disappearing from the Chinese market, after Suzuki and Mitsubishi which have already disappeared. Volkswagen lost 1 million sales between 2017 and 2023, GM lost 2 million. Honda, Nissan, Hyundai-Kia, Ford have lost several hundred thousand.
- This trend seems inevitable in the future, because the models of Chinese carmakers are becoming more and more competitive, which has allowed them to increase from 40% market share in China in 2015 to 45% in 2021 and 57% in 2023. Their rise is meteoric. The extent of their range which is constantly developing, their technological advance in terms of electric motorization, their design which has made enormous progress and is today more modern than the non-Chinese cars stuck in their tradition, all together in a market with a fierce competition on prices. All these factors have enabled a vast transfer of Chinese customers towards Chinese models.
- It will be very difficult for non-Chinese carmakers to regain lost market shares. Toyota and Tesla remain exceptions. Certainly, Tesla's position does not seem to be compromised in the short term, but for Toyota, it will be more delicate because this carmaker does not propose mass volume electric models sold at a large scale and already the decline seems to have started in 2023.