China’s home car market had a weak October, with retail sales down 27% on a year earlier. Its car exports went the other way, up 68.5%, with exports of electric and plug-in hybrid cars more than doubling. For Gulf buyers, already seeing a wave of new Chinese brands and models, that means more cars, more competition and more pressure on prices.
The figures come from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), which published its October data on 9 and 10 November.
A weak “Silver October” at home
October is normally one of the strongest months of the year in China, the second half of the “Golden September, Silver October” sales season. Not this year:
- Passenger car retail sales: 1.643 million, down 27.1% year on year (up 1.5% on September).
- January to October: 14.98 million, down 22.3%.
- New-energy vehicles (EVs and plug-in hybrids): 1.109 million retail sales, down 13.7%, the tenth monthly fall in a row.
- Petrol and diesel cars: about 530,000, down 45%.
“October’s most striking feature was weakness during a traditionally strong selling season,” the CPCA said. The association said trade-in subsidies are still available, “but their marginal impact is diminishing”, and that tighter subsidy rules have hit sales of small, cheap cars bought by first-time buyers.
There is one record in the gloom: new-energy vehicles took 67.5% of retail sales, the highest share ever, as persistently high oil prices pushed Chinese buyers away from petrol.
Exports take up the slack
With demand falling at home, Chinese carmakers are shipping more cars abroad than ever:
- Passenger car exports (including kits for local assembly): 928,000, up 68.5% year on year, or 35% of all cars the manufacturers sold in October.
- New-energy exports: 582,000, up 144.7%, making up 62.8% of all passenger car exports.
- January to October new-energy exports: 4.47 million, up 139.7%.
Production fell 10.1% to 2.65 million cars, but wholesale shipments to dealers and export markets held up much better than retail sales, with exports adding almost 17 percentage points to wholesale growth.
Who is exporting
BYD led the new-energy export table by a wide margin, according to CPCA figures compiled by CnEVPost:
- BYD: 164,679 (up 105.6%)
- Chery: 83,843 (up 105.4%)
- Geely: 80,119 (up 488%)
- Tesla China: 59,012 (up 66.3%)
- SAIC Passenger Vehicle: 42,030
- Changan: 30,343
- Leapmotor: 21,132
- SAIC-GM-Wuling: 16,866
- XPeng: 13,326 (up 166.6%)
- GAC Aion: 12,150
BYD’s own monthly figures, which count all of its overseas sales, put October overseas sales above 169,000 out of about 483,000 passenger vehicles in total, ChinaEVHome reported.
By technology, fully electric cars made up 61.7% of China’s new-energy exports in October, plug-in hybrids 33.7% and range-extended models 4.6%. More than half of the electric cars exported were small city and compact models, the segments where Chinese brands are hardest to beat on price.
Almost every name on the list is now active in the Gulf, either directly or through brands such as Jetour (Chery), Zeekr and Lynk & Co (Geely), Deepal (Changan) and Yangwang (BYD).
What it means for the Gulf
The Gulf has become one of the main destinations for this flood of Chinese cars. Chinese carmakers now hold more than a quarter of the Saudi and UAE markets, according to YallaMotor, and the pace of launches has picked up in recent weeks alone: XPeng brought the GX and G9L to the Middle East, Li Auto opened its first Dubai showroom, BYD revealed the Yangwang Altior in Abu Dhabi, and the Jetour T2 has become one of the region’s best-selling Chinese cars.
For buyers, more supply usually means more choice and sharper prices, especially at a time when the Saudi market is shrinking. YallaMotor’s forecast puts Saudi passenger car sales at 714,000 in 2026, down 7.5% on 2025, with Chinese brands “filling gaps at the entry level”.
For established brands, mostly Japanese and Korean, it means a tougher fight on price and technology. Toyota, one of the Gulf’s biggest brands, is responding with more hybrids, while European premium brands face a growing number of Chinese luxury rivals.
A warning for early 2027
The CPCA also flagged a risk. Part of October’s export boom came from orders being pulled forward, ahead of expected changes to export tax rebates and new tariffs in some overseas markets. That could mean weaker exports in the first quarter of 2027.
At home, the association said a lasting recovery depends on clearing the backlog of replacement purchases and stabilising consumer confidence. Until that happens, Chinese factories will keep looking abroad, and the Gulf, with its open markets, high incomes and appetite for SUVs, will remain one of their favourite targets.
Sources: CnEVPost: October NEV retail, CnEVPost: NEV exports by automaker, ChinaEVHome: BYD October sales, ChinaEVHome, YallaMotor.