{"id":757131,"date":"2026-07-11T18:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T18:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/757131\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T18:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T18:12:09","slug":"major-german-carmakers-hit-by-steep-china-sales-plunge-as-competition-heats-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/757131\/","title":{"rendered":"Major German carmakers hit by steep China sales plunge as competition heats up"},"content":{"rendered":"

HONG KONG (AP) \u2014 Major German carmakers saw sharp quarterly sales declines in China<\/a> as domestic demand weakened and competition heated up in the world\u2019s biggest auto market.<\/p>\n

At Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Porsche, China sales for the April-June quarter plummeted between 30% and 41% compared with the same period a year ago, according to company data released over the past week.<\/p>\n

For the first half of this year, they all reported a more than 20% year-on-year drop in China. The falling China sales have squeezed their overall profits and in some cases offset gains from other regions.<\/p>\n

This also comes at a time when these legacy German carmakers are faced with intensified competition from Chinese automakers outside of China, including in Europe<\/a>, as leading Chinese brands like BYD make inroads<\/a> overseas.<\/p>\n

The latest quarterly sales declines were some of the steepest seen for the German automakers in China, said Lei Xing, an independent auto analyst.<\/p>\n

Volkswagen group, for example, saw deliveries in China down 36.6% during the quarter to 424,300 vehicles, which dragged down its global sales to a 8.6% decline, even as deliveries increased in Europe and the Americas.<\/p>\n

The Wolfsburg, Germany-based auto group, which has been betting big<\/a> on the Chinese market, said it would be slashing its model lineup by up to half<\/a> after the latest sales declines.<\/p>\n

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\"Employees<\/p>\n

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China\u2019s prolonged property sector downturn<\/a> and an economic slowdown have hurt consumer sentiment, with more people shunning big-ticket purchases. Strong competition<\/a> in its domestic car market and a yearslong fierce price war have also hit<\/a> many European carmakers, with drivers opting for affordable Chinese car brands.<\/p>\n

Porsche, part of the Volkswagen group, called China\u2019s market environment \u201cchallenging\u201d in a statement, while Mercedes-Benz said China is facing \u201ca significantly weaker overall market and macroeconomic environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s passenger car sales at home fell 24% in the first half of this year to nearly 8.3 million<\/a>, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry group.<\/p>\n

Consultancy AlixPartners expects sales of light vehicles, including passenger cars, in China will likely fall about 10% for the whole of this year.<\/p>\n

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As Chinese car brands become increasingly preferable in China, \u201cforeign automakers are going to have to fight for every share of (the) market,\u201d Stephen Dyer, Asia-Pacific leader of the automotive practice at AlixPartners, said at a news briefing last month.<\/p>\n

German auto groups remain much stronger in making internal combustion engine vehicles, such as gasoline cars, than electric vehicles, said Chris Liu, with the research and advisory group Omdia, at a time when EVs sales in China are doing better than conventional fuel vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe German automakers are bearing most of the brunt,\u201d said Xing, the independent analyst.<\/p>\n

Chinese carmakers also have a competitive edge over foreign automakers as they typically update their model lineup a lot more frequently than their rivals, Dyer added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONG KONG (AP) \u2014 Major German carmakers saw sharp quarterly sales declines in China as domestic demand weakened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1204,106,173581,28,144,233832,35988,793,2026,20999,324282,32738,22143,965],"class_list":["post-757131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-asia-pacific","tag-auto-industry","tag-bayerische-motoren-werke-ag","tag-business","tag-china","tag-chris-liu","tag-financial-performance","tag-general-news","tag-international-news","tag-retail-and-wholesale","tag-stephen-dyer","tag-volkswagen-ag","tag-workplace-culture","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}