The first real month of sales this year sees BYD return to the front, but facing intense competition across the board.
March sales and delivery figures from China’s New Energy Vehicle (NEV) sector are coming in for the first month of real significance in the year with China’s largest national holiday now in the rear view.
As a result, more brands have been confident enough to deliver sales or delivery figures for the month, and for the first time in three months we’re able to see how much of the unusual results earlier this year are starting to form a trend and which were flashes in the pan.
BYD will be looking to re-establish themselves as forerunners after seeing rivals Geely lead in the domestic market in the first two months of the year, while brands that started the year poorly will be looking to get a solid marker on the board to build upon.
Let’s dive into the results.
BYD
As predicted in our previous monthly reports, BYD has returned to the front on domestic soil, but while many of the negative LinkedIn headlines from passersby have been somewhat premature, there’s still a drop-off in form that the market leader will be hoping to address as the year goes on.
With 262,327 units on the board, they had an expectedly chunky month-on-month (MoM) gain of 59%, but the key figure here is in the year-on-year (YoY) figure, which is 25% in the red.
BYD was so far ahead of second place last year that a 25% drop this year still keeps them comfortably ahead of Geely domestically, even with exports rising to 119,591 units, but the gap is now much closer than before and suddenly they don’t seem quite so infallible.
Speaking of exports, these made up over 60% of February’s tally, but just over 45% this month, so while the idea has been that BYD is reliant on exports, that’s not quite the case.
Geely Galaxy
Dropping back into second place on China’s NEV chart, Geely’s Galaxy range posted a decent month but one that, against the odds, wasn’t even their best of the year.
With 82,744 units delivered, this was just a 13% improvement on the massively disrupted February, a paltry gain when other results here are taken into consideration, while the year-on-year gain was just 8%, another solid result but results elsewhere show the competition isn’t just coming after BYD.
Wuling / Baojun
The Wuling Baojun team return to our table after avoiding publishing results in February, reclaiming their podium position with 60,487 units delivered for March ahead of the launch of the fifth-generation Wuling Hongguang Mini.
Their claim of a 111% improvement on last month confirms February’s result as being under 30,000 units, which is an aside to the main story here which is a 33% YoY drop in performance, an even greater concession than BYD’s.
Bear in mind that Wuling and Baojun play ball generally at the bottom end of the table, and you start to see where the issue might be, with brands like Leapmotor, traditionally a mainstream maker, now offering value-laden products with LiDAR units for less than RMB 100,000.
This penetration of high-tech ADAS systems into the bottom end of the market is going to put pressure on brands like Wuling and Baojun unless they find ways to integrate such systems at similar prices. Watch this one closely.
Leapmotor
Leapmotor returned to form in March after a very steady start to the year, posting 50,029 deliveries, good enough for fourth on our table until Tesla results eventually emerge.
The MoM gain of 78% is really in the ballpark of expected revivals from February, but the 35% YoY gain is more significant, showing that even with last year’s impressive performance, there’s yet more to come from one of the real winners in 2025.
Models like the A05 at the bottom end, bringing a LiDAR unit to the sub-RMB 100,000 category, and the D19 at the top end bringing their trademark high-value proposition to the hottest segment in China right now, explain entirely why Leapmotor remains the brand to watch in 2026.
Li Auto
Li Auto took a bruising in 2025 but seem back on the right track in 2026, posting their best March result ever, and their ninth best month overall, better than all but one month in 2025, that month being the end of year December high point.
Deliveries totalling 41,053 units in March were an expected 55% jump on last month, and a very solid 12% improvement on last March, showing that while their EREV SUVs are facing competition from the likes of AITO and more, their fully electric SUVs are helping to plug the gap.
GAC AION
GAC AION didn’t bother to post results in February, presumably because they didn’t look too great, but they put that all behind them in March, returning to the upper tier of our table with 38,268 units delivered.
This moved them closer to their historical highs, achieved under the era of ride-hailing buyers picking up the spacious AION Y, and saw them improve on last year’s result by 12% to post their best March ever.
These gains appear to be driven by the likes of the hybrid variant of the Y, called N60, and their new venture with JD.com to sell battery-swappable AION UT Supers entirely through that platform.
Qiyuan
For a period last year, Changan’s Qiyuan brand, known as NEVO in some markets, looked to have truly tapped into a rich vein of form, and after a sizeable dip to start the year, they look to back in the hunt, posting 36,875 deliveries in March.
This was a somewhat outsized revival of 102% on February’s paltry figure, but the YoY gain of 141% tells a story of its own, namely that the brand has come a long way in a very short space of time.
This time last year, they just about cleared 15,000 units.
Deepal
Deepal were notably absent from our chart last month but return in March with a typically solid performance, 31,742 units being a hefty 88% jump on last month and, more significantly, an impressive 30% improvement on last year.
This result marks their sixth best monthly result ever, which coming as early as March suggests they could be in for a strong year in 2025, particularly with exports of their S05 mid-size SUV just beginning in international markets to seemingly positive reviews.
Zeekr
Zeekr slips down our table this month despite putting in another strong performance, primarily because they seemed to ride the first two months of the year out with little negative impact leading rivals to return to their usual positions this month.
Still, with the dust settled on the first two months, they’ve miraculously emerged ahead of both XPeng and Fangchengbao who soundly outperformed them last year, 29,318 deliveries propelling them to their second best monthly result ever after December.
The MoM gain of just 23% shows just how well they managed to perform in February, but it’s the 90% YoY gain that really stands out, a spectacular step-up in form just as they needed it.
With several updates hitting the market and the new 8X joining the range soon, and traction abroad starting to ramp up, it could be a breakout year for Geely’s premium marque.
Yipai
Dongfeng’s Yipai Technology, which encompasses Yipai and Nammi, had an impressive month in March, delivering 27,505 units in total to outpace one of last year’s star performers, XPeng.
While we don’t have a YoY performance metric to compare to, Yipai does claim a 34% first quarter improvement on last year’s opening months, which is a useful performance gain, and just one of many explanations for why brands like BYD are feeling the pressure as other brands chip away.
XPeng
A slow start to the year for XPeng doesn’t seem to have been rectified much by March’s return to normality, the brand posting just 27,415 deliveries, a 17% drop year-on-year from what was, admittedly, a very strong year.
We’re not exactly sure what might be behind this result. The brand hasn’t become suddenly more expensive, it hasn’t been outpaced on technology with their new VLA 2.0 receiving high praise and 5C fast-charging across the range, and they’ve even added a number of EREV models to the line-up which were supposed to add greater appeal in markets where BEVs aren’t as popular.
It could be changes at the factories causing a blip in output, or it could simply be the slump after a wave of popularity that can often hit the trending brands in China. Either way, we’ll be watching to see how this plays out.
Fangchengbao
Fangchengbao’s breakout year last year, which resulted in a peak month of over 50,000 sales, somewhat distorts their relatively middling performance on this chart, with just half that number, 25,926 units, finding buyers in March.
Sales in China don’t tend to follow a linear trend line, even without an industry-shaking incentive removal each year, and it’s that context that needs to be considered with Fangchengbao, illustrated by their 222% YoY improvement.
They may have hit as high as fifth on this table at one point, but this is more like where their average rests, so building on this continually throughout the year must be the goal with a very solid base point.
NIO
NIO continues to improve month by month, 22,490 deliveries being the brand’s second best monthly result ever, highlighted by a 120% improvement over last year.
The story with NIO centres around where the sales are coming from, and while the brand proudly boasted of the ES8’s 16,255 unit contribution to this total, it still shows there’s a heavy reliance on one car, this making up 72% of total deliveries in March.
Put another way, without the new ES8’s arrival, deliveries would likely be under or around 10,000 units, or basically the same as last year. That’s obviously not the point, because the ES8 has arrived and has been a huge hit, but replicating that success is what will be keeping NIO’s bosses up at night.
The new ES9 should boost numbers a little, but the volume drivers are the ET5/ET5T, and ES6/EC6, both of which are getting updates in the next couple of months, so we’ll soon see if NIO has found the secret sauce.
Xiaomi
Sitting in unfamiliar territory halfway down our table is Xiaomi, settled as they are at the ‘just over 20,000’ monthly deliveries mark.
In a rising market, that’s going to see you falling down the pecking order. The primary reason for this is, of course, the off-lining of the previous SU7, with the updated SU7 set to return and bolster these figures next month, but Xiaomi might have hoped the YU7 might keep figures higher than this in the meantime.
If you fancy seeing a review of the updated SU7, you can check out our video below.
Voyah
Voyah reclaimed their spot around the 15,000 deliveries mark in March, posting a figure of 15,019 units for the month after a softer start to the year.
Returning to this baseline, post the incentive stripping, is a positive sign in itself, and a year-on-year improvement of 50% backs this up, suggesting the brand is making solid gains despite the wider competition.
Lynk & Co
After several months of top notch results, Lynk & Co took something of a battering in March, 13,056 units being a 36% drop on February’s results (!) and an 8% drop year-on-year.
Such is the startling drop in the figures you’d have to assume this is a planned dip of some sort, perhaps adjustments at the factory, or delayed deliveries with improvements on the way, like those to the Z10 electric saloon which is now named 10+.
One to keep an eye on next month.
Wey
The rejuvenation of Great Wall’s Wey brand got back on track in March with 7,751 deliveries marking a 66% YoY improvement from a slow start to proceedings last year.
Curiously, this result was slightly lower than January’s, but nevertheless seems to show continuous growth for at least one of Great Wall’s NEV brands, given that things don’t seem to be going so well at Ora (more on that later).
IM
IM returned to reporting delivery figures in March, and while 7,187 units wasn’t enough to break into the 10k club where they really need to be, it did at least see them move ahead of Denza, which is a story in and of itself.
Credit where credit is due, this result is 43% better than it was this time last year, and better than all but four of their monthly results in 2025, but you have to feel they’re still not getting enough out of this brand.
With the new LS8 joining the not-too-recently launched LS9, they’ll be hoping to see some positive impact when sales begin in earnest, but we’ll believe in that when we see it.
Denza
Things seem to be going from bad to worse at BYD’s premium brand, Denza, and it’ll take a heroic effort from new brand ambassador James Bond, sorry, Daniel Craig, to pull them out of this particular underground bunker.
Sales of just 7,133 units in March saw them fall below perennial underachievers IM in this table, and marked a chunky 43% drop from last year’s result.
They haven’t posted a result remotely as poor as this in a normal month for over two years, suggesting this is a balloon rapidly filling up with lead rather than something more productive.
Mr Craig is probably getting paid handsomely to be the face of international sales, and Denza will be hoping this is no time to die instead of a poorly placed bet at Casino Royale.
AVATR
Another brand perennially at the apex of disappointment is AVATR, arguably the most distinctive car maker in China and proof that design alone doesn’t buy you a seat at the table in China.
Deliveries of just 5,143 units in March is a seismically poor result, less than half of what the brand managed last year as they confidently strode towards the relative safety of 10,000 units, and less even than their result from February last year.
It’s not even like they’re overpriced or under-specced, boasting Huawei’s high-tech ADAS and operating system, and Meridian speakers no less.
It could be merely an early year low ahead of a rebound, as with last year, but boy do they need the 06T to sell as well as it looks.
Ora
Ora returned to normality in March, doubling their poor deliveries from February that saw them drop behind ROX in the pecking order, but normality merely means they’re stable on life support rather than critical.
March deliveries of 2,529 units means they’re still 9% down on last year, which wasn’t one anybody would consider something to write home about, and so they continue, limping through existence while the big boss plots supercars and V8s.
ROX
While ROX stares up at this table month after month, if nothing else, they can at least console themselves with steady growth at the same time.
Deliveries of 1,480 units in March was a very decent 40% improvement on this point last year, and while that’s from a low base, every little counts.
Viewers of the Inside China Auto channel have suggested they should try to sell them in Australia, while the author suggests they should lob the back off and make a pick-up (or ‘ute’), but no such developments seem to be on the way sadly.
Yangwang
Yangwang prop up the table as ever, 307 deliveries in March not exactly setting the world alight despite the U7 having been on sale for some time now, but if there’s any solace it’s that sales are at least up 131% on last year, more than doubling.
Is that enough to make them profitable alone? Likely not, but they have BYD as their cash donor and they’re doing OK, so as a halo brand they’re probably exactly where you’d expect them to be.
Editor’s Comment
Many have come at BYD in recent weeks on the back of poor performances at the start of the year, and while their return to the top proves some of those criticisms unfounded, there’s a definite rise in the temperature down in Shenzhen.
Nearly every one of the brands on our table saw year-on-year gains, and each one chips a little more of the market away from BYD, as well as any remaining cars in China that still offer just purely combustion drivetrains.
Perhaps the more important picture though is indeed those gains across the board. 2026 was supposed to be the year the Chinese NEV bubble collapsed once the last remaining tax incentives were removed, but tell that to the brands enjoying a warm green glow on our table. They’re still gaining ground year-on-year, and that’s significant.
Spare a thought for the brands at the bottom of our table, many of whom have consistently struggled to rise to, let alone sustain a position above, 10,000 units a month. Several are backed by big names, like BYD, SAIC, and Huawei, but are they at risk of being culled or becoming financially untenable to their donors if they don’t get their act together?
The Chinese automotive market has rarely been kind to those who fail the sustainability test, and it’s awaiting its next victim in 2026. It’s now or never for a select few.
Still to come…
We don’t expect all of these brands to share their figures, but these are the usual suspects who should be in this list and they’ll make it onto the table when and if they post.
