Once commanding premiums of 300,000 yuan with vehicles being hard to come by, Bentley is now struggling with sluggish sales despite price reductions of up to 500,000 yuan.

As luxury brands like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche are swept into a wave of price cuts, Bentley, a traditional top-tier ultra-luxury brand, has also seen its prices collapse in the Chinese market. The cash discounts on its main models are approaching 500,000 yuan, representing a significant drop.

Recently, information about Bentley's price cuts has been flooding social media and car enthusiast groups, drawing widespread market attention. A staff member from a Bentley 4S store revealed, "Taking the 2026 Bentley Flying Spur as an example, the comprehensive discount ranges from 350,000 to 450,000 yuan. Financing options can push the discount to around 500,000 yuan."

Some models have seen reductions as high as 800,000 yuan, yet Bentley's sales in China remain weak. Compared to its historical peak of 4,212 units sold in 2021, its full-year sales for 2025 were only 2,030 units—a direct "halving" of the market. The latest financial report shows that in 2025, Bentley's sales in mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for 19% of its total sales, down from 23% in 2024.

Some car owners have noted that significant price cuts by BBA (BMW, Benz, Audi) are no longer surprising, but they did not expect ultra-luxury brands to slash prices even more aggressively.

New 2026 Models See Discounts Up to 500,000 Yuan

In 2026, the Chinese automotive market reached a historic inflection point, with the fuel vehicle market, led by luxury brands, entering a price-cutting wave involving Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, and others. Surprisingly, Bentley, at the pinnacle of the luxury pyramid, has also seen its terminal prices plunge dramatically.

Messages like "Bentley's new models plummet in price! The all-new 2026 Bentley Flying Spur for only 2.65 million yuan! Available now! Full color range!" have been circulating widely on social media and in car groups, signaling a loosening of pricing for multiple Bentley models and attracting significant market attention.

"This is car dealers deliberately posting low prices to attract customers, but you can't actually buy a car at that price," explained a staff member from a Bentley 4S store. "Bentley's discounts have indeed been higher these past two years, but a full cash payment still requires around 3.5 million yuan. Taking the 2026 Flying Spur as an example, the comprehensive discount is between 350,000 and 450,000 yuan. With financing, the discount can reach about 500,000 yuan."

Further research shows, for instance, the 2024 Bentley Flying Spur V8 standard version had an official guide price of 2.793 million yuan. The discounted current price offered through dealer channels has now fallen to as low as 1.993 million yuan—a single-model discount of 800,000 yuan, equivalent to the price of a Porsche 718, representing a depreciation of nearly 30%.

Used Car Market Shows More Severe Depreciation

In the used car market, Bentley's price fluctuations are even more pronounced. Data shows that in June 2026, the three-year residual value rate for the Bentley Flying Spur dropped sharply from nearly 75% last year to 62%, a depreciation of over 12 percentage points in one year. Media reports indicate that in a used car market in Shandong recently, a used Bentley Flying Spur was listed for as low as 268,000 yuan.

Persistent Sales Decline in China

Bentley, the ultra-luxury brand founded in Britain in 1919 and brought under the Volkswagen Group in 1998, entered the Chinese market as an import in 2002 and long held a position at the peak of the luxury car pyramid.

Its peak moment in China was in 2021, with annual sales of 4,212 units reaching a historic high for the brand in the country. However, a turning point followed this peak. According to media statistics, Bentley's sales in China have been on a continuous downward trajectory since 2022: falling from 4,033 units in 2022 to 3,006 in 2023, further declining to 2,608 in 2024, and dropping to only 2,030 units for the full year 2025—a "halving" compared to its peak.

Entering 2026, this downward trend has not reversed but appears to be accelerating.

From a macro perspective, data from the China Passenger Car Association shows that domestic imported car sales in April 2026 were only 27,000 units, a year-on-year plunge of 33%. The cumulative import volume from January to April was only 120,000 units, down 8% year-on-year.

Against this backdrop of a cooling overall market, the ultra-luxury segment has been hit the hardest. Even though Bentley led the ultra-luxury brands with 100 imported units in April, its year-on-year decline of 52% was staggering. Ferrari and Rolls-Royce sold 54 and 46 units respectively during the same period, with declines of 17% and 19%. Looking at quarterly cumulative data, Bentley's sales for the first four months totaled 489 units, down 30% year-on-year, while Ferrari and Rolls-Royce's cumulative sales were 194 and 164 units respectively.

The situation did not improve in May, with Bentley experiencing another double-digit deep decline.

According to the latest luxury brand import sales ranking data released by the CPCA, among the seven brands listed, six showed year-on-year declines, with one brand's monthly import volume dropping to zero. Bentley, although topping the list with 115 imported units—the only brand with over 100 units for the month—still saw a significant year-on-year decline of 36%.

Furthermore, Ferrari ranked second with 36 imported units, down 32% year-on-year. Rolls-Royce imported 29 units, down 45% year-on-year. Lamborghini ranked fourth with 24 imported units, showing 0% year-on-year growth, making it the only brand on the list without a decline. Maserati imported only 21 units, down 80% year-on-year. Aston Martin ranked sixth with 14 units, down 7% year-on-year. McLaren faced a more extreme situation, with May import volume at zero units, a 100% year-on-year decline.

Overall, the collective chill in the ultra-luxury imported car market in May is a microcosm of industry transformation. Media statistics show that Bentley, Ferrari, and Lamborghini all recorded three consecutive years of sales declines from 2023 to 2025. This signifies that the former "divine chariots" symbolizing the pinnacle of the wealth pyramid are experiencing an unprecedented collective winter.

The "chill" in the Chinese market extends beyond sales reports and is directly reflected in the company's financials. On March 17, Bentley released its financial report, projecting its 2025 operating profit to fall to £187 million, a 42% decrease from 2024.

Bentley CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser admitted that the continuous contraction of demand in the Chinese market is the main reason for the sales decline. Financial report data shows that in 2025, Bentley's sales in mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for 19% of total sales, down from 23% in 2024.

On the same day as the earnings release, Bentley announced layoffs of up to 275 people, representing 6% of its total workforce, primarily affecting management and non-manufacturing positions. Facing the dual pressures of a profit cliff and layoffs for survival, Walliser stated in a press conference call that the automotive industry "is under pressure from all sides." He further added, "It is precisely in times like these that companies must examine their cost structures and operational efficiency."

Is the Era of Easy Wins Over for the Ultra-Luxury Segment?

How did luxury cars that were once hard to buy even with a premium suddenly become unsellable?

Zhang Xiang, a guest professor at Huanghe Science and Technology College, provided an in-depth analysis, pointing out that Bentley's current predicament results from multiple factors: market competition, user generational shifts, product shortcomings, and industry trends. He broke it down into four specific dimensions.

First, the strong rise of domestic high-end new energy brands has entered the luxury car field. The trend towards premiumization and new energy in the automotive industry is becoming increasingly evident. A number of Chinese domestic brands have successfully entered the million-yuan luxury car segment, performing excellently in market sales and user reputation, directly siphoning off Bentley's core customer base and squeezing its market space.

Second, Bentley's brand recognition has significantly declined. The current luxury car consumer base in China is gradually becoming younger. The brand preferences of the new generation of consumers have changed, favoring new high-end brands like Tesla, HarmonyOS-affiliated brands, and NIO, which combine a sense of technology, youthfulness, and intelligence. In contrast, Bentley's brand audience remains solidified, with loyal users concentrated in middle-aged and elderly groups, making it difficult to align with the aesthetics and usage needs of the mainstream young consumers. The brand's vitality is declining yearly, and its user base is continuously shrinking, becoming a significant reason for the ongoing sales decline.

Third, the product's intelligent shortcomings are prominent, and its core competitiveness lags severely behind the industry. Currently, Bentley's main models are primarily pure fuel vehicles and plug-in hybrids, with overall intelligence levels lagging behind mainstream domestic high-end brands. In key configurations and functions that consumers focus on, such as intelligent cockpits, in-car software, and large-screen interaction, Bentley's model iterations are slow and technology lags, failing to meet the current demand for intelligent mobility among high-end consumers, leading to a gradual loss of product advantage.

Fourth, Bentley models offer relatively low cost-performance and have significant energy consumption disadvantages, which do not align with the major trends of industry development. Bentley's entire lineup is equipped with large-displacement fuel engines, resulting not only in extremely high purchase thresholds but also consistently high subsequent costs for fuel consumption, maintenance, and usage, making their overall cost-performance far inferior to domestic high-end models in the same price range. Furthermore, the large-displacement engines, once Bentley's core technological barrier, have now become a weakness hindering brand development, running counter to the industry trends of new energy and low-carbon development. Additionally, Bentley's own pace of new energy transformation is slow, its electrified product lineup lags, and it has failed to keep up with the pace of market change in a timely manner, further exacerbating the brand's market difficulties.

These four pressures are interlinked, each forcing this century-old British aristocrat to make a choice: either completely lower its stance and rebuild its product and technological systems, or continue to endure the simultaneous erosion of both sales and prestige within its old dream of luxury.

In Zhang Xiang's view, Bentley's most critical current issue lies in its mindset. "As an ultra-luxury brand with a century of history, Bentley has accumulated profound brand heritage, unique brand stories, and极强的 brand recognition—core advantages that most emerging high-end brands find hard to match. The most crucial thing now is to abandon the development mindset of 'living off past glory' and definitely cannot rest on its laurels," he emphasized. "Bentley must actively embrace new energy and industry transformation to re-stabilize its core position in the ultra-luxury segment."