As the final month of a busy 2025 rolls in, we take a look at the final month results and tally up the year’s performance.
China’s December NEV sales and deliveries are coming in and it’s quite the mixed bag, with some brands clearly suffering from the retraction of subsidies from the state and local governments, and some brands still managing to grow sales numbers despite that.
Certainly the final month of a fascinating year wasn’t the peak for sales and deliveries that it has been in previous years, but nevertheless provides an interesting point for many of these brands to enter the uncharted territory of a subsidy-free 2026.
BYD
China’s NEV sales champions, and the newly-crowned best-selling EV brand in the world, surpassing Tesla, will have something of a bittersweet taste in their mouth today, after delivering a somewhat disappointing December from the main brand’s perspective.
Their tally of 345,466 units still leads all other brands by some margin, but inclusive of the pulling of subsidies, equates to an 18% drop in sales on November.
The number is even more interesting when you consider that the brand exported 133,172 units in December, their highest ever figure, and more than a third of total BYD sales with not so many Denzas being sold abroad just yet.
This is a trend we’d expect to see continue into 2026 as BYD continues to push its brand and expand its range in international markets, so how much closer will the competition at home be by the end of this year?
Geely Galaxy
A fantastic year for Geely’s Galaxy range ended with something of a slump, even more pronounced than BYD’s at 24%, dropping to 100,694 units in December.
Overall, it was an excellent year for the brand though, highlighted by the 45% growth for the month year-on-year, and 150% sales growth for the full year, reaching a total of 1,235,807 units in 2025.
Wuling/Baojun
Wuling and Baojun also suffered a sizeable drop in deliveries in December, down 20% on November at 94,686 units, though the pairing also commonly has relatively large fluctuations month-by-month.
Nevertheless, the month was still a 5% improvement on last year’s December result, which would likely be one of the brand’s best-ever, so that tells a more positive story of their overall fortunes.
Leapmotor
Leapmotor’s stellar 2025, where they arguably turned in the most impressive performance of all the brands in this list, also came to something of a crashing halt in December, 60,423 units down 14% on November’s record high.
Once again, the long-term story is worth considering, with December 2025 outperforming December 2024 by a solid 42%, showing that things remain as rosy as ever for Leapmotor.
The question is whether the brand can overtake the Wuling Baojun partnership in 2026 to climb onto the podium.
Fangchengbao
Rivalling Leapmotor for performance of the year, and completely defying the retraction of subsidies, is BYD’s Fangchengbao, who posted a record high 50,868 units in December, breaching the 50k mark for the first time and blowing November’s record month out of the water by a whopping 36%.
This is demonstrated even more starkly in the year-on-year performance, up an incredible 345% for the month, and in the overall annual improvement, which was up an equally impressive 316%.
At this point, the off-road focused brand is making up almost a fifth of BYD Group’s monthly sales in Mainland China, having started the year’s representative months (March onwards) at just over 8,000 units.
Xiaomi
Xiaomi doesn’t like to give accurate monthly delivery figures so it could be ahead of Fangchengbao on this list, but the reported 50,000+ units delivered in December is a new record for the brand and an increase of 25% on last month.
The year-on-year result is that December’s number doubled that of last year, and with Xiaomi having already cleared the half a million mark, at this rate they’ll hit their first million sometime next summer.
Qiyuan
Qiyuan, too, bucked the general trend in December, posting a new record high delivery figure of 48,777 units, edging closer to the magic 50k mark, an stepping up their performance on last month’s record high by 4%.
We don’t have their figures for last December, but their total for the entire year, over 411,000 units, was 42.6% up on 2024’s performance, so it’s been a strong year for Changan’s mid-range brand.
Li Auto
Something of a turnaround to end what’s been an underwhelming year for Li Auto, but one that will be much welcomed in Beijing, the brand posting its best month of the year by some margin, delivering 44,246 units.
That’s a sizeable 33% improvement on November, as deliveries of the fully electric i6 and i8 start to ramp up, but still represents a 24% drop year-on-year, reflecting the brand’s almost 19% drop in full year sales.
A significant refresh of the L-series models is on the horizon, while the brand has also begun to expand into international markets including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Egypt, with more on the way.
GAC AION
GAC AION, encompassing AION and Hyptec, have had a year of average to poor performances, but pulled out all the stops in December to post their best month of the year with 40,066 deliveries.
That marks a 10% improvement on last month’s improved performance, but remains a 14% drop on last December, however the end-of-year boost suggests the battery-swapping HT Super, launched together with commercial giant JD, the AION i60, and the Hyptec A800 might have had positive starts to life.
This is the kind of momentum the brand needs heading into 2026 where international sales in major markets will commence, and where more battery-swapping models will come on stream.
XPeng
XPeng’s stellar year faded somewhat towards the end, and the massive improvement in some rival performances saw the brand slip down these rankings further than their performance really warrants, but regardless 37,508 units delivered in December is a good problem to have.
That figure represents 2% improvements in both the month-on-month and year-on-year results, but the headline is in the annual improvement, a massive 126% gain achieved with 429,445 deliveries for the year.
Duplicating those results in 2026 will be the challenge, but the new EREV models and several other promised products such as the robotaxis, might just help them do it.
NIO
NIO’s meandering year exploded into life in December, the premium, fully electric marque posting their first month over 30,000 deliveries, with 31,897 units a massive 73% monthly improvement.
The boost is almost exclusively down to the new ES8 which has been a smash hit for the brand since launch, over 40,000 units delivered already, around half of which were delivered in December, helping the brand to a 55% year-on-year gain.
Without meaning to put a dampener on proceedings, it’s worth noting that 20,000 ES8 deliveries would mean the brand’s performance is around 60% dependent on one model, which isn’t an ideal position to be in but not one that can’t be rectified.
Full year deliveries for the NIO brand were down just over 11% on 2024, suggesting underlying challenges still need to be ironed out.
Deepal
Deepal’s relatively strong year started to slip slightly towards the end, 30,999 deliveries from Changan’s premium NEV brand nothing to sniff at, but some way short of their peak just under 37,000 in October.
That figure represented a 6% drop on November, and 15% drop on December last year, neither of which look ideal, but the bigger picture is a 36.6% improvement on 2024 for the full year, with over 333,000 units delivered, so it’s not all doom and gloom.
Zeekr
Zeekr’s strong end to an otherwise disappointing year mirrors that of NIO, December marking the first ever month the brand has cleared the 30k mark, with 30,267 units delivered an improvement of 5% on last month’s previous record high.
Year-on-year, that’s a gain of 11%, and a welcome way to end the year, but with full year sales growth lagging behind the market at just under 1%, the brand will be hoping to find another gear and boost exports in 2026.
Lynk & Co
Lynk & Co’s December figure of 23,235 units is a close estimate of the brand’s NEV deliveries in December, based on total year sales minus the data we do have for the month’s to November, and it represents something of a dip as the year came to a close.
The figure was down 12% on last month, but a solid 61% up on last year, demonstrating that the brand’s expanded and improved range has been something of a success in 2025.
Arcfox
Another estimated result for Arcfox, and one that again shows a drop off in performance in the final two months of the year, but 2025 has been a solid year for BAIC’s NEV brand, topping 20,000 units on several occasions, and more than doubling sales from the earlier months of the year.
The big improvement is in most part down to the T1, which bumped sales upon its launch mid-year, but we don’t have exact figures for how much of the sales it represents.
Arcfox did declare total sales over 160,000 units for 2025, which represents a 99% improvement on 2024, almost doubling sales, so it’s fair to say the brand is at least going in the right direction.
Denza
Denza’s fortunes in 2025 have been almost the opposite of sister brand Fangchengbao, whose cars the brand will adopt in international markets, but December marked something of a reversal in fortunes, 18,139 units a 37% improvement on November.
The boost was in part down to the introduction of the N8L, which helped the brand to a 20% year-on-year gain, with the full year sales of 157,134 units marking a 24.7% boost over 2024, so while 2025 was a fairly average year overall, it wasn’t quite as bad as it seemed.
Voyah
Voyah’s improvement in 2025, supercharged by the integration of Huawei tech into each of the brand’s cars, trailed off somewhat in December, with the 15,954 units delivered a 20% drop on November’s record high.
Compared to last year, however, the result was 31% better than last December, which was dwarfed by the brand’s overall improvement for the full year, an impressive 87% rise over 2024 with 150,169 units delivered in total.
Wey
Wey’s sluggish start to the year was overcome in positive fashion from mid-year onwards, the GWM brand delivering 12,899 units in December, a 1% improvement on last month’s record high, and a 46% boost over last December.
With full year deliveries totalling 101,954 units, that represents a more than 86% gain on 2024, showing that the brand is starting to make the right moves, albeit from a much lower starting point than most on this list.
AVATR
AVATR’s 2025 was certainly better than 2024, the brand managing to clear the 10k mark in all but the first two months of the year, and in doing so the brand topped total year sales of 120,000 units.
December was something of a dip, however, 10,470 units a 26% drop on a record month in November, and even 5% down on last December, albeit with the incentives yanked completely.
We don’t have a full year figure for 2024 but with most month’s in 2025 demonstrating a doubling of sales at a minimum, it’s fair to assume the brand improved by over 100% for the full year, though they really need to kick on in 2026 the way brands like Voyah and Arcfox have done.
Onvo
In a result we didn’t see coming, Onvo had an absolute catastrophe of a month for deliveries, with just 9,154 units finding homes, almost half their record figure from October and 22% down on November.
The most likely explanation would be an issue with production, because with the launch of the L90 it seemed all was rosy at NIO’s second brand, but this seems too high a drop, down 13% year-on-year, to blame on the tax incentive retraction.
Ora
Ora’s disappointing year is summed up by the fact that GWM doesn’t even report their sales figures anymore, so the figure of around 8,272 units here has been collected from data we do have and what was reported for the year.
Given the inconsistency of their reporting, we don’t know exactly how much more this was than last month or last December, but they at least seemed to double what they were getting in earlier months so maybe the new Ora 5 SUV is starting to move things along slightly.
firefly
firefly had a solid end to a meandering year of growth for the diminutive new brand, improving on December’s numbers by 16% to edge that little bit closer to the 10k mark.
European sales are starting to open up now and so in the coming months we’ll see whether the promise of a small car built for Europe actually starts to come to fruition.
iCAR
A poor end to the year for iCAR resulted in sales of around, because Chery hasn’t provided exact numbers, 6,659 units, which is a whopping 42% down on last month, and 36% down on December last year.
The brand, despite its characterful identity, has never quite hit the heights you might expect, but with demand looking promising in international markets, the brand’s expansion as iCaur into other countries could see the tables finally turn in 2026, but at this point we won’t be placing any firm bets.
ROX
ROX has struggled for any momentum or meaningful numbers this year, but December was a very clear high spot, 2,528 units almost doubling their previous best month, and all but doubling their result from last December.
As we’ve said many times, these kinds of figures aren’t really sustainable unless their profit margins are sky high, but if the owner’s pockets are deep enough, and ambition high enough, they could steadily achieve something, but they’ll likely need some new metal to achieve it.
Yangwang
Yangwang hasn’t had a fantastic year, particularly given how well the U8 landed when it was first launched, and with the brand now having the U9 and U7 in its line-up, you’d hope for more than just 311 units delivered in December.
That’s less than half their figure from November and, although we don’t have any data for December last year, we’d suspect it’s not much better than that.
One hopes their profit margins are sizeable because right now BYD’s most luxurious brand isn’t performing as they might wish.
Editor’s Note
December’s numbers tell a fascinating story, albeit an inconclusive one, about how China’s tax incentive retraction is going to affect the growth of the country’s NEV industry.
The immediate result seems to be quite a heavy impact, with the top sellers seeing a dip in sales from November of between 18 and 24%, though bearing in mind that December is usually the high point of the year, the impact is slightly greater than that.
The result is clearly inconclusive though because some brands managed to boost their sales or deliveries considerably, and not always with a new model to account for the gains, so it would seem some brands were better prepared for the incentives retraction, or perhaps extended their offer to cover the incentive loss into December.
But taking the whole year into account, it’s been a stellar year for Geely Galaxy, Leapmotor, Fangchengbao, Xiaomi, and Qiyuan, and XPeng, and a less than stellar one for BYD, Li Auto, and GAC AION in particular.
Other big name brands, like NIO and Zeekr, meandered for most of the year but saw things turn around mid-year, while less well known names like Voyah and Arcfox really turned up their game this year hitting impressive new highs.
So while the big victims in 2025 seem to have been ICE sales, at the expense of fully electric cars and hybrids, it’ll be fascinating to see whether any of the momentum of 2025 survives into 2026. With Chinese New Year generally denting new car sales for January and February, it’ll be March or April before we start to get a clearer picture on who is in good shape, and at this point it looks more and more like international sales will be needed to keep the good times rolling.
