BYD ranks fifth globally, Geely tenth. Has the Chinese automotive industry won?

In the world's largest automobile market with an annual production and sales of 31 million, how many local car companies can emerge?

The answer is fifth in the world.

Today, a "2024 Global Automotive Sales Ranking" has circulated in the automotive circle. In addition to Toyota, Volkswagen, and Hyundai-Kia remaining firmly in the top three, the more important information is that two Chinese independent car companies have entered the top ten for the first time.

Among them, BYD, which will sweep the mainstream price range of the new energy market in 2024, ranks fifth globally with a sales figure of 4.27 million vehicles, successfully surpassing the two American giants General Motors and Ford, and is only 1.15 million vehicles away from the fourth place, Stellantis.

Additionally, Geely Group has also successfully entered the top ten. Including brands like Volvo, ZEEKR, Lynk & Co, Polestar, and Lotus, the 3.34 million vehicles sold are now just a stone's throw away from Nissan Group's 3.37 million.

From SAIC achieving over a million annual production and sales for Chinese car companies in 2010, to Changan achieving over a million for independent brands in 2015, Chinese car companies have once again crossed a milestone in 2024, entering the global top five.

In addition to BYD and Geely, Chery, Great Wall, Nio, XPeng, and others are also key players in the global narrative of Chinese automobiles. International, electric, and intelligent are the keywords for Chinese car companies to impact the global rankings.

As the penetration rate of new energy continues to rise and the price and intelligence wars heat up in 2025, can we expect more Chinese car companies to enter the global top ten? Or even further?

Today, let's talk about the ranking challenge.

01 From 1 Million to 4 Million

On December 15, 2015, Xu Liuping, then Chairman of Changan Automobile, announced that the Changan brand of passenger cars in China would achieve simultaneous production and sales of over a million within the year.

That year, the Chinese automobile market's production and sales both exceeded 24 million, and even Changan's passenger cars, which broke the million mark, only tapped into 4% of the market space.

Also in 2015, Volkswagen suffered from the emissions scandal and lost to Toyota, missing out on the global number one spot again. Nevertheless, Volkswagen and Toyota remain the two benchmarks for global automotive sales since the 21st century.

At that time, Chinese car companies did not have the ability to sit at the table, but they had the ambition to challenge.

In 2015, SAIC, Changan, Geely, Great Wall, and Dongfeng ranked as the top five independent brands, while also ranking 13th, 15th, 17th, 19th, and 20th in global sales respectively. Chinese car companies had already become the main force of the second tier Since 2015, the subsidy era for new energy vehicles in China has been booming, with new car manufacturers like Nio, Li Auto, and XPeng being established one after another. Chinese automobiles have begun to challenge the sales rankings in new ways.

By 2021, Geely became the first domestic brand to rank among the top three in annual sales in the Chinese market; in 2022, BYD achieved a doubling of growth and became the first domestic brand to rank as the number one in sales in the Chinese market.

Also in 2022, SAIC Group's total sales reached 2.81 million vehicles, marking the first time a Chinese automotive company entered the global top ten in sales.

Whether it is domestic brands or state-owned automotive groups that combine joint ventures and domestic production, they have completed a transformation, launching an assault from the second tier to the first tier.

As a result, as shown at the beginning, Chinese automotive companies moved from tenth to fifth place in just three years; it took only three years to break into the top ten with two seats.

In 2019, former Daimler President Dieter Zetsche said, "China has exceeded all our expectations," which summarizes the journey of Chinese automotive companies since the 21st century, while new car manufacturers have brought China's "beyond expectations" to the center of the global stage.

02 Can they win?

Momentum can inspire more ambitious imaginations— if they can reach fifth, why not aim for first?

Toyota is the automotive company that has won the most global sales championships since the 21st century, and most consumers around the world still adhere to the "economical and practical" car-buying concept. The Model Y, which has won the global single model sales championship for two consecutive years, is essentially also a good family car that is easy to drive and use.

On the other hand, aside from the stable Toyota and Volkswagen, the continuously declining General Motors and Ford serve as a different reference point— how can they avoid losing?

Economical and practical is not the entirety of Toyota's success, and General Motors and Ford were not surpassed by Chinese automotive companies overnight.

By 2025, the reshuffling of the domestic market by domestic automotive companies is becoming a reality; however, relying solely on the domestic market will not allow Chinese automobiles to reach the top globally.

According to data from the China Passenger Car Association, the largest exporting domestic brand in 2024 is Chery, with 881,541 vehicles—BYD, on the other hand, exported 405,786 vehicles, accounting for 9.4% of BYD's total sales in 2024.

In contrast, Toyota's sales outside Japan in 2024 are 8.7175 million vehicles, accounting for 85.8% of total sales.

Reshaping the domestic market can cultivate Chinese automotive companies in the global first tier, but only by fully going overseas can they achieve complete victory. Toyota's more than 40 factories worldwide and 700,000 employees will be the ultimate goal for Chinese automotive companies to strive for As for General Motors and Ford across the ocean, they reflect the light-footed approach of the new car-making era.

In 2011, General Motors became the world's largest automaker by sales, and this may have been the last time GM topped the global rankings.

Also in 2011, the Chevrolet Volt was launched, becoming one of the two pioneers of the pure electric era alongside the Nissan Leaf. At that time, the world had high hopes for GM, but that may have already been GM's peak.

In the eight years leading up to the launch of the Volt, cumulative sales had not yet surpassed 200,000 units, while Tesla's Model 3 delivered more units in 2018 than all of GM's new energy vehicles sold in the U.S.

After selling Opel/Vauxhall in 2017 and exiting the Australian and New Zealand markets in 2020, GM has been trying to lighten its load, proving itself with electric and intelligent technologies, but it is difficult for a giant to quickly turn around when it is losing speed.

Ford is also losing speed; the fact that it has had ten CEOs in ten years in China is enough to witness the hesitation of the inventor of the assembly line, and the mere 0.6% share of pure electric sales in 2020 confirms the slow and ineffective transformation.

In 2023, GM's electric division had a profit margin of -32%, while Ford reached -45%.

Our fortune lies in successfully surfing the wave of technology and in the efficiency and supply chain that has emerged from the competition.

The new four modernizations of automobiles have been proven effective by the market, and intelligent driving, smart cockpits, and power batteries are becoming the engines and gearboxes of the last century.

2019 was the first complete year for Nio, XPeng, and Li Auto to deliver simultaneously, with new energy vehicle sales in China only reaching 1.024 million that year; five years later, this number grew to 12.8 million, an increase of over 1100%.

Comparing 2019 and 2024, global new energy vehicle sales grew by 800% over five years, with China's new energy vehicles outperforming the overall market. In 2024, 7 out of every 10 new energy vehicles sold globally will come from the Chinese market.

However, "quantity" is just the first round; the market's "breadth" and the "quality" of sustained profits are the core of winning.

After all, Tesla, which did not make the list and saw a decline in sales last year, had a net profit of $2.594 billion (19.8 billion yuan) in the first half of 2024; Toyota's net profit for the first half of the 2024 fiscal year was 1.91 trillion yen (91.3 billion yuan). Meanwhile, BYD's net profit for the same period in 2024 was 13.6 billion yuan.

Author of this article: Yu Fei, Source: Electric Planet, Original title: "BYD ranks fifth globally, Geely tenth, has the Chinese automotive industry won the competition?"

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