With the announcement of the report card in January, the ranking of car companies has changed again. I didn’t expect BYD to lose the crown and be overtaken by it!
A few days ago, the Association released the January 2025 market report. The data shows that in January 2025, the retail sales volume of the domestic passenger car market was 1.794 million, down 12.1% year-on-year and 31.9% quarter-on-quarter. However, this month’s double decline is actually reasonable. After all, due to the influence of the Spring Festival holiday in year of the snake, many consumers will concentrate on reuniting with their families, so buying a car will naturally be ignored.
Surprisingly, however, Geely Automobile made a little surprise this time. In January, its sales volume surpassed BYD to rank first, reaching 240,000 vehicles and increasing by 28.2% year-on-year. It is the brand with the highest increase in the list, among which the Galaxy product series has a strong performance, which can be called the pillar of brand sales. Of course, this data refers to retail sales, and Geely is still not as good as BYD in terms of wholesale sales, ranking second in the list.
As the largest manufacturer of new energy vehicles in China, BYD lost in the beginning of 2025, falling 3.2% year-on-year to 200,000 vehicles behind Geely. However, it is believed that this "backwardness" should only be temporary. Just a few days ago, BYD announced the launch of 21 smart driving models. The "God of Eyes" smart driving system covers all models, and less than 100,000 models are covered. This is really another level.
The third place is FAW-Volkswagen. The former "first brother" in the market is now completely out of temper. In January, the retail sales volume was 137,000 vehicles, down 15.4% year-on-year. Although it regained its position, it must be said that in this era of new energy "rampant", the advantages of traditional fuel vehicles are indeed disappearing. In contrast, SAIC Volkswagen fell 14.1% year-on-year to 99,000 units, ranking sixth in the list.
Followed by Changan Automobile and Chery Automobile, the former dropped by 37.3% year-on-year to 122,000 vehicles, but just now it has started the first shot of national intelligent driving, and its product strength has been further enhanced, which should have a good performance in 2025. Chery Automobile sold 119,000 vehicles in January, up 12.2% year-on-year. It is another growth car enterprise besides Geely Automobile, and there are many new cars coming soon. For example, we can look forward to it!
In addition, SAIC-GM-Wuling also entered the top ten with a score of 59,000 vehicles, ranking ninth with a year-on-year decline of 11.6%. However, it also has a lot of pressure, and it lingers in the fans of low-end cars all the year round. In the long run, this is not a good phenomenon. How to enhance the brand’s upward momentum needs to be considered. As for Great Wall Motor, it fell out of the top ten on the list, and this situation has happened many times. What happened?
Among the Japanese car companies, only GAC Toyota and FAW Toyota entered the top ten in January, with sales of 63,000 and 60,000 vehicles respectively, down 11.7% and 14.1% year-on-year, ranking seventh and eighth in the list, including Dongfeng Honda, GAC Honda and Dongfeng Nissan. In the final analysis, it is their lack of competitiveness in the field of new energy. Without an excellent green brand car, there will naturally be no attention.
Finally, among luxury brands, BMW Brilliance is still on the list. Generally speaking, it is a relatively stable brand. In January, it ranked tenth in the list with sales of 53,000 vehicles, but it fell by 23.7% year-on-year. It seems that the "Blue Sky and White Clouds" logo still has a certain audience. Obviously, the competition in the auto market has become more and more fierce. After fighting for new energy, we are thinking intellectually. How to keep up with the trend of the times is the focus that auto companies should consider in 2025!