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09
2026
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03
China overtakes Japan as global vehicle export leader
Chinese carmakers, led by BYD and Chery, are reshaping the global auto export market. Vehicle shipments hit record levels in 2024–2025, with EVs accounting for 40% of exports.
Data compiled by McKinsey shows that back in 2019, Japan was the biggest global vehicle exporter, with 4.8m units exported. At this point China exported only around 700,000 vehicles. Fast forward to 2024 and China had become by some distance the world’s largest exporter, with 5.5m units. Forecasts released in July 2025 suggested that Chinese exports could exceed 7m units this year. Japan’s exports by contrast had fallen to 4.2m in 2024.
Unlike the EU, the UK has not imposed additional tariffs on Chinese EVs, and this helps to explain how the UK accounted for 4.6% of China’s June exports against 3.9% for the first six months of the year
A key driver behind rising vehicle exports from China is the number of EVs exported, with 40% of Chinese passenger vehicle exports in 2024 having been EVs. This also coincided with BYD overtaking Tesla as the world’s largest EV manufacturer; BYD sold nearly 4.3m EVs in 2024, versus Tesla’s 1.8m.
Top 10 Chinese vehicle export destination
In June 2025, the top 10 destinations for Chinese exports accounted for 44% of the total. Looking more closely at these, is currently the largest destination market for Chinese-made vehicles; however, under pressure from the US administration, Mexico is raising tariffs on Chinese-made vehicles to 50% and once these are being applied and operationalised, there will almost certainly be a reduction in Chinese exports to Mexico.
The Middle East is becoming an increasingly important destination for Chinese-made vehicles, and we can expect volumes shipped to the UAE and Saudi Arabia to rise steadily; Saudi’s share of Chinese exports in June was higher than for the first six months of the year.
Unlike the EU, the UK has not imposed additional tariffs on Chinese EVs, and this helps to explain how the UK accounted for 4.6% of China’s June exports against 3.9% for the first six months of the year.
By contrast the importance of Belgium, Brazil, Russia, and Australia has fallen, while the relative importance of Kazakhstan and Philippines has risen. It should be noted that Belgium’s position in the top ten may be somewhat illusory since its ports are a key landing point for Chinese exports to a range of EU countries and some of the vehicles exported to Belgium are likely to be destined for other countries.
Which Chinese OEMs are leading the export charge?
In terms of exports by company, Chery was the leading exporter from China in H1/2025, with nearly 545,000 exports, although this was down 3.5% year-on-year; BYD was second, with 443,000 exports, up 118%; SAIC (mostly MGs) was third with nearly 243,000 exports, down 4.1% year-on-year. These were followed by Geely, Great Wall Motor, Changan, and SAIC-GM-Wuling (SGMW). Intriguingly Tesla exports fell by nearly one-third (partly because of European consumers’ reaction to the political involvement and activities of Elon Musk); meanwhile Jiangsu Yueda Kia rose 21% to nearly 86,000 exports and Beijing Hyundai rose nearly 250%, albeit to a modest total of just under 35,000 units.
RoW figures show Chinese OEMs differing export success
Turning to South America, BYD and Chery are by some way the biggest exporters; indeed, second placed Chery exported nearly twice as many vehicles (c83,000) to the region as the third place Great Wall (42,000). Other Chinese companies with rising export volumes to South America this year include Jiangling, DFSK (which is a brand of the Seres group and formerly affiliated to Dongfeng) and SAIC. Geely, Jiansgu Yueda, SGMW and Changan all saw declining volumes sent to South America in the first eight months of the year.
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