Finance
Where Chinese automakers have gained the most ground in Europe
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on February 11, 2026
2 min readLast updated: February 11, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on February 11, 2026
2 min readLast updated: February 11, 2026
Chinese automakers are expanding in Europe, doubling their market share to 6% in 2025, with significant growth in Norway, the UK, Spain, and Italy.
By Javi West Larrañaga and Alessandro Parodi
Feb 11 (Reuters) - Chinese automakers gained ground in Europe's competitive car market in 2025, but their market share varied greatly from country to country, data from automotive consultancy Inovev shows.
Although Chinese firms doubled their overall share of car sales in Europe to 6% last year, they represented nearly 14% of sales in Norway, where almost all newly registered vehicles were fully electric, while making up just over 2% of sales in Germany and Slovakia.
Companies including BYD, Geely Holding and Chery have expanded quickly into major markets across Europe, attracting cost-conscious buyers with cars that in some cases cost 10,000 euros ($11,902) less than equivalent models from European brands.
They gained ground in Britain, to around 11% of all new car sales in 2025, and in Spain and Italy, to around 9%, Inovev's data shows, roughly doubling the respective market shares from a year earlier.
The European Union has imposed tariffs of up to 35% on Chinese-made EVs, but that has not stopped the country's automakers, including newcomers like Changan, from launching new models.
Crucially, the tariffs do not apply to combustion engine or hybrid models. So in Poland, where Chinese automakers had an 8.2% market share last year versus almost zero sales as recently as 2023, almost two-thirds of the vehicles they sold had a combustion engine.
But new Chinese rivals are struggling to win over consumers in car-manufacturing countries like Germany or France, the data shows.
Inovev's data includes figures from the European Union, Britain, Switzerland and Norway, excluding Sweden's Volvo Cars, which is majority-owned by China's Geely.
Britain has not imposed tariffs on Chinese-made cars.
($1 = 0.8402 euros)
(Reporting by Alessandro Parodi and Javi West Larrañaga in Gdansk; editing by Nick Carey, Kirsten Donovan)
Market share refers to the percentage of an industry or market's total sales that is earned by a particular company over a specified time period.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are automobiles that are powered by electric motors instead of internal combustion engines, using electricity stored in batteries.
The automotive industry encompasses all companies and activities involved in the manufacturing, marketing, and selling of motor vehicles.
A combustion engine is an engine that generates power by burning fuel and air, converting the energy from combustion into mechanical energy.
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