On September 29, Cui Dongshu, Secretary-General of the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), published an analysis stating that the global market continued to diverge in 2025, with China's market share gradually recovering. In early 2025, driven by robust government subsidy policies, China's auto sales rebounded, with China's global market share rising to a favorable 38% level in August, up 4 percentage points from the previous year.

Global auto sales reached 7.6 million units in August 2025, up 6% year-on-year and down 1% month-on-month from July. With China's auto market continuing to strengthen, global auto sales in August 2025 significantly exceeded the peak levels of August 2018, reaching historical peak levels for August. From January to August 2025, sales totaled 61.98 million units, up 6% year-on-year.

Global auto sales from January to August 2025 grew 6%, with China selling 21.1 million units (up 12%), the United States 11.25 million units (up 3%), India 3.29 million units (down 6%), Japan 3.03 million units (up 6%), and Germany 2.07 million units (down 3%). Currently, China's market shows the strongest vitality and fastest growth rate. Russia's market declined severely, Mexico's growth slowed, while South American markets like Argentina performed well.

Chinese domestic brands comprehensively improved their global market share. BYD COMPANY-100, GEELY AUTO, CHERY AUTO, and Chang'an demonstrated strong performance. With rapid development in new energy vehicles, Chinese automakers showed strong momentum, with BYD COMPANY-100 reaching 6th place globally, GEELY AUTO 9th place, and CHERY AUTO 11th place. The electrification trend has also led to the gradual decline of some international automakers. Except for the temporarily strong U.S. market and favorable factors in India's market for Suzuki, other international brands saw comprehensive and significant market share declines.

**1. Monthly Global Auto Sales Trends**

The global auto market remained relatively stable from January to August 2025. Due to Chinese New Year falling in January, the low sales during China's Spring Festival led to lower global growth in January. The global auto market performed strongly from February to August, with Chinese automakers contributing significant incremental growth during this period.

Global auto sales reached 7.6 million units in August 2025, up 6% year-on-year and down 1% month-on-month from July. With China's auto market continuing to strengthen, global auto sales in August 2025 significantly exceeded the peak levels of August 2018, reaching historical peak levels. From January to August 2025, sales totaled 61.98 million units, up 6% year-on-year.

After consecutive declines from 2018-2020, global auto sales from major countries reached 81.35 million units in 2021, up 4% year-on-year, showing good post-pandemic recovery. However, 2022 saw only 80.18 million units, down 1% year-on-year, only slightly higher than 2020 sales. Global auto sales reached 89.01 million units in 2023, up 11% year-on-year. The revised 2024 annual total sales of 91.77 million units exceeded 2019 levels, recovering to reasonable levels. Despite the complex global automotive environment, January-August 2025 sales of 61.98 million units exceeded 2017 levels, recovering to high levels, though still below the same period in 2018.

**2. Historical Global Auto Sales Trends**

The global auto sales data in the above table mainly represents 70 countries, which had approximately 90 million units in 2019 and can be tracked monthly. Due to frequent conflicts, global data has been slower in recent months. Another 100 countries can only be tracked annually, totaling approximately 3 million units in recent years. Compared to the 80 million units from 70 major countries, these smaller countries represent only about 3% of the total, having minimal impact.

From the perspective of global sales represented by major countries, the declining cycle began after 2018, with global auto sales down 1% in 2018, down 4% year-on-year in 2019, down 13% in 2020, up 4% in 2021, down 1% in 2022 (poor performance), up 11% in 2023 (good performance), and up 6% from January to August 2025 (good performance).

China's auto market was temporarily weak at the beginning of this year due to Spring Festival factors, but subsequently, the comprehensive performance of China's auto market from March to August will exceed expectations and achieve super-strong growth.

**3. China Maintains Leadership Position with 2024 Sales**

China's automotive market has enormous influence on the global automotive market. From 2016-2018, China accounted for about 30% of global sales, dropping to 29% in 2019 but still maintaining absolute dominance. The share recovered to 32% in 2020-2021, rose to 33% in 2022, maintained at 33.8% in 2023, reached 34.2% of global automotive sales in 2024, and achieved 34% of global automotive sales from January to August 2025. The relatively low performance of Chinese automakers at the beginning of the year reflects normal Spring Festival factors. With policy stimulus effects becoming apparent, China's auto market has continued to strengthen since March, with even better share growth expected in autumn and winter.

**4. Emerging Markets Show Strong Growth**

From global country sales perspectives, developed markets in Europe and America are performing relatively well, China's auto market trend is generally good, and in 2024, Russia's domestic sales approached China's export volume, with Chinese automakers achieving extremely high market share in Russia. The Russian market gradually recovered in 2023-2024, bringing high sales and profits to Chinese domestic automakers. In 2025, Russia's market declined significantly, with its share dropping to 1.4%.

Since 2020, China's global share has continued to rise, reaching 33.8% in 2023, 34.2% in 2024, and 34% from January to August 2025, which is already very good.

**5. Global Market Trends by Country**

Global auto sales from January to August 2025 grew 6%, with China selling 21.1 million units (up 12%), the United States 11.25 million units (up 3%), India 3.29 million units (down 6%), Japan 3.03 million units (up 6%), and Germany 2.07 million units (down 3%). Currently, China's market shows the strongest vitality and fastest growth rate. Russia's market declined severely, Mexico's growth slowed, while South American markets like Argentina performed well.

**6. China's Global Market Share Trends**

The global market continued to diverge in 2025, with China's share gradually recovering. In early 2025, driven by gradual implementation of new subsidy policies, China's auto sales rebounded, with January's share reaching 34%. However, due to February's Spring Festival factors and temporarily high performance in markets like the U.S. and Japan, China's global share was only 31% in February. With the promotion of trade-in subsidies, China's global automotive share continued to improve, with August's share recovering to a favorable 38% level, up 4 percentage points from last year.

China's auto market gradually returned to normal in 2025, combined with gradually recovering exports, leading to continuously strengthening sales share. From March to August 2025, China's market further warmed up, with China's auto market sales share continuously exceeding historical monthly highs.

**7. Monthly Sales Trend Characteristics by Country**

From the monthly sales growth trends of countries worldwide, a basically balanced state is maintained between months. However, due to seasonal factors, annual factors, and other influences, there are still significant differences in trends among countries. Since China's auto market is still in a popularization phase, it shows relatively strong performance at the beginning and end of the year, with relatively soft spring trends. The U.S. market shows relatively weak performance at the beginning of the year and relatively stable mid-year characteristics. However, China's auto market's spring rally characteristics were not obvious in 2024, so share improvement was limited. Due to declines in European and American markets, market trends remained stable. Japan's auto market was relatively weak in August this year. China's auto market was generally weak in early 2025, followed by sustained good growth.

**8. International Groups' Global Market Share Performance**

This chart shows the global sales share trends of major automotive groups. From current group comprehensive performance, international leading automakers' share declined significantly, while Chinese automakers generally performed strongly. With the improved international automotive market positions of China, Russia, and India, combined with good market performance from Asian automakers like GEELY AUTO, BYD COMPANY-100, CHERY AUTO, Chang'an, and Suzuki, Asian automakers showed good production and sales trends. European automakers generally performed poorly. Among this year's top 10 global automakers, 2 Chinese automakers showed strong share growth, with BYD COMPANY-100 reaching 6th place globally, GEELY AUTO 9th place, and CHERY AUTO 11th place.

**9. International Groups' Regional Market Share Performance**

East rising and west declining, Chinese domestic brands comprehensively improved global market share. BYD COMPANY-100, GEELY AUTO, CHERY AUTO, SAIC, Chang'an and other domestic brands performed strongly. Except for factors promoting Suzuki and Tata in the favorable Indian market, other international brands saw comprehensive and significant share declines in 2025.

Due to China's Spring Festival factors and U.S. tariff risks in early 2025, some international automakers were stronger at the beginning of the year, then declined subsequently. From January to August 2025, Toyota Group performed relatively strongly, down only 0.1 percentage points from 2019, maintaining around 11.3% global share in 2025, mainly due to Toyota's overall strong performance in European and North American markets.

Volkswagen's performance was relatively weak from January to August 2025, with share down 2.4% from 2019, facing significant pressure in the Chinese market. Volkswagen Group's other global markets improved significantly overall, with Southern Hemisphere markets recovering notably.

Hyundai Motor's trend remained stable, reaching 7.7% from January to August 2025, up 0.1% from 2019. Hyundai Group performed very well in North American and other Asian markets but continued to trend weakly in China due to insufficient product competitiveness.

Suzuki's market performance was strong, mainly due to strong performance in India and Japan markets. Honda Group also declined 2.2% from 2019 this year, showing poor performance, with weak performance in the Chinese market.

Mercedes-Benz faced significant market pressure, with share declining in multiple regions. BMW Group performed steadily. Traditional luxury cars faced increased pressure in the Chinese market. Due to changing consumer demand, luxury car demand is shifting toward domestic high-end brands.