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Why 2025 will be a boom for Chinese cars: BYD, MG, Chery, Zeekr and more are set to shake up the new-car market, but should Toyota, Hyundai and Ford be worried?

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Stephen Ottley
Contributing Journalist
13 Jan 2025
3 min read

Despite a backwards step in 2024, Chinese cars are on-track to bounce back in 2025 as a flood of new brands enter the market.

While brands like BYD, MG, GWM and Chery have already established themselves, a new wave is on the way to challenge Japan as Australia’s biggest car importer.

By the end of 2024 there were 12 Chinese brands officially in the Australian market and at least two more have announced plans for entry into our market in 2025 with more expected to follow. Japan, by contrast, only has nine brands in our local market but still comfortably leads the overall production with nearly 379,000 vehicles from Japan sold here in 2024.

That compares to 272,139 from Thailand and 176,159 from China. Those figures don’t account for a brand’s national base but rather simply where they are built, so it includes certain Tesla, Volvo and other models from different brands.

But while Japan and Thailand still lead the way as the most popular countries for new-car production, China appears on-course to overtake them in the not-too-distant future at the current rate.

Smart #1
Smart #1

With the likes of Zeekr, Leapmotor, Deepal, XPeng, Geely, Smart, JAC, GAC/Aion, Jaecoo and more set to grow in 2025, plus expanded product lines from BYD, MG, GWM and Chery, the approximate 96,000 sales difference between China and Thailand could shrink dramatically this year.

Leapmotors C10
Leapmotors C10

The industry is well aware of the rapid growth of the Chinese car industry in Australia, with Toyota Australia’s Head of Sales, Marketing and Franchise Operations, Sean Hanley, commenting this week: “The Australian new-car market has always been one of the most competitive in the world, and 2025 will be no different. We expect to see more new brands and models, which means more choice and even stronger competition, which, in the end, is great for the consumer.

Jaecoo J7
Jaecoo J7

“By all reports, there could be a dozen new Chinese car companies arriving in Australia by the end of next year. In the past five years, they have taken more than 13 percentage points of market share from established brands.”

Hanley was quick to point out that while these new brands have taken significant market share, Toyota remains the clear leader.

Zeekr X
Zeekr X

However, that growth must come from somewhere and that will force brands across the market to react to this new array of rivals. This is likely to result in increased competition for Australian buyers at a time when cost-of-living pressures are expected to cool the market after record sales in 2024.

Stephen Ottley
Contributing Journalist
Steve has been obsessed with all things automotive for as long as he can remember. Literally, his earliest memory is of a car. Having amassed an enviable Hot Wheels and Matchbox collection as a kid he moved into the world of real cars with an Alfa Romeo Alfasud. Despite that questionable history he carved a successful career for himself, firstly covering motorsport for Auto Action magazine before eventually moving into the automotive publishing world with CarsGuide in 2008. Since then he's worked for every major outlet, having work published in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Drive.com.au, Street Machine, V8X and F1 Racing. These days he still loves cars as much as he did as a kid and has an Alfa Romeo Alfasud in the garage (but not the same one as before... that's a long story).
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