Chinese OEMs see W-European market share surpasses Koreans, with Japanese in their sights
- Matthias Schmidt
- 4 hours ago
- 1 min read
Spanning 40 individual brands, or just under half of the ever-inflating over 100 car brands now present across the region, Chinese brands edged ever closer to accounting for 10% of the Western European new car market. During December, the share crept to 9.7%, contributing to a record year of 6.3% market growth in 2025 and just failing to double over the previous year (3.4%). A strong second half countered a slow opening half to the year.
Q4 2025 saw a record 237,120 new units enter the market, with volumes surpassing Korean models (203,539) for the first time in a quarter, translating to 8.1% market share – 1ppt greater than combined Korean models.
However, a large proportion of those market share gains appears to have been attributed to losses from Japanese models over the same period last year, which saw their collective market share fall from 12.4% during the final quarter of 2024 to just 11.2% during the same period in 2025.
Chinese OEMs also appear to be gaining market share from Tesla, which shed a further 0.8ppts during 2025 compared to 2024, ending the year with below 2% market share (1.9%) for the first time since 2021.
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Source: Schmidt Automotive Research
*Western Europe 18 Markets: EU Member States prior to the 2004 enlargement plus EFTA markets Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, plus UK
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