BYD is China’s best-selling automaker for the fourth year in a row Geely, Chery And Great Wall Motorsalthough the sales target was missed by almost one million vehicles.
As part of a global shift, China will become the world’s largest automaker in 2025, overtaking Japan for the first time. Preliminary sales figures show BYD at the top of the list of Chinese brands.
Nevertheless, BYD achieved sales of 4,602,436 in 2025 – compiled by CarNewsChina – 897,564 vehicles or 16.32 percent below the announced target of 5.5 million.
Although the figure is over seven percent higher than in 2024, when 4,250,370 vehicles were sold, it represents the brand’s slowest growth on record, as December 2025 sales saw a rare decline in electric vehicle (EV) numbers.
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Electric vehicles accounted for nearly half of BYD’s total sales, at around 2.2 million units, enough for the brand to remain the world’s leading electric vehicle manufacturer for the second year in a row.
Preliminary figures from the competitor Tesla expect the electric vehicle maker to end the year with 1.64 million sales, well below BYD and below the 1.79 million Teslas sold worldwide in 2024.
A record 1,046,083 BYD exports were recorded in 2025. This marks the first time the brand has shipped more than a million cars abroad, as Chinese automakers sought sales growth abroad in a cooling domestic market.
The record export number included the first vehicle from this year Denza The premium brand will ship to Australia following its official launch in late 2025.
According to the latest available Australian figures up to the end of November 2025, BYD is the second best-selling Chinese brand and is eighth overall, one place behind GWM Haval (Great Wall Motors).
In addition to automotive tariffs in Europe and the United States, Chinese brands have also faced increasing pressure from domestic price cuts, which not only hurt profits but also prompted stricter regulation.
These included Chinese government interventions on so-called zero-kilometer cars, with oversupply leading to some automakers allegedly selling a car in China before shipping it abroad for resale.
Second-place Geely was one of only two top five brands to meet or exceed its sales target. Midway through the year, it increased sales from 2.7 million to three million before recording 3,024,567 sales.
The other brand to smash the target was fifth-placed Leapmotor – behind Chery and Great Wall Motors (sold as GWM Haval in Australia) – which comfortably exceeded its target of 500,000 with 596,555 vehicles sold.
Zhu Jiangming, CEO of Leapmotor, said Reuters Earlier this week, the brand plans to sell one million vehicles in 2026 and four million per year within a decade.
The only other brands in the top ten that met their goals were Xpeng – Launched in Australia at the end of 2024 – and Xiaomiwhich only sells cars in China, with the first exports to Europe planned for 2027.
Great Wall Motors recorded the largest discrepancy between its four million target and final sales, with 1,323,672 deliveries, missing around two-thirds.
| brand | Sales 2025 (Source: Car news China) |
Sales target 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| BYD | 4,602,436 | 5,500,000 |
| Geely | 3,024,567 | 3,000,000 |
| Chery | 2,631,381 | 3,260,000 |
| Great Wall Motors | 1,323,672 | 4,000,000 |
| jump motor | 596,555 | 500,000 |
| HIMA | 589,107 | 1,000,000 |
| Xpeng | 429,445 | 350,000 |
| Xiaomi | 400,000 (TBC) | 350,000 |
| Li car | 406,343 | 640,000 |
| Nio | 326,028 | 440,000 |
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