SAIC takes the “mid-year sales crown” in the car market.

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Author | Zhou Zhiyu

SAIC Motor has retaken the top spot in China's auto market in terms of scale.

On July 1, SAIC disclosed its latest sales data: 395,000 vehicles sold in June, up 8.1% year-on-year; total sales in the first half of the year reached 2.045 million, becoming the first Chinese automaker to surpass the two-million mark this year. This means SAIC has surpassed BYD (just over 1.8 million vehicles in the first half), securing the sales champion position in the mid-year Chinese car market.

The significance of SAIC’s return to number one goes beyond scale.

In the first half of the year, SAIC’s own brands sold a total of 1.469 million vehicles, up 12.6% year-on-year, accounting for 71.8% of total group sales, an increase of 8.3 percentage points compared to the same period last year. Among them, SAIC Passenger Vehicle grew 49.4%, IM Motors grew 107%, and Maxus grew 29.1% year-on-year.

In other words, SAIC's return to mid-year number one is no longer just due to its joint ventures like SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC GM. Its own brands are now a more definitive main force.

This is crucial for SAIC. For a long time, SAIC's strongest asset had been its joint venture system. SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC GM once supported its sales and profits and kept SAIC at the top of Chinese auto company scale. But as new energy vehicles quickly rose, this system became the slowest to adapt. The brands, channels, and development processes built up in the era of fuel vehicles have no intrinsic advantage in competition for new energy and intelligent vehicles.

SAIC management has not avoided this issue.

At the 2025 annual shareholder meeting held on June 26, Chairman Wang Xiaoqiu responded to investor questions by saying that SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC GM were once very successful, but after 2020, as new energy developed rapidly, their electrification pace became slower, and the ratio of fuel vehicles remains high.

This statement, viewed in the context of SAIC’s mid-year sales crown, further explains its current situation: it has regained first place in scale, but can no longer rely on the old way to keep it.

New energy is another major change. In June, SAIC sold 201,000 new energy vehicles, up 66.6% year-on-year; total sales in the first half were 796,000, up 23.1% year-on-year.

New energy growth began to spread across multiple segments. In its own brands, SAIC Passenger Vehicle sold 239,000 new energy vehicles in the first half, up 218.1% year-on-year; IM Motors sold 40,000 vehicles, up 107%; SAIC-GM-Wuling sold 343,000 new energy vehicles. Joint ventures are also catching up: SAIC GM sold nearly 50,000 new energy vehicles in the first half, up 81.1% year-on-year; SAIC Volkswagen’s newly launched ID. ERA 9X and Audi E7X also started contributing sales.

SAIC’s new energy story is no longer just about one brand or one model. Its own brands hold the scale, joint ventures bolster the new energy shortfall, overseas markets continue to provide incremental growth—a three-pronged approach forms the substance of this mid-year sales crown.

Overseas markets are another pillar. In the first half, SAIC sold 735,000 vehicles overseas, up 48.7% year-on-year; overseas sales in June were 146,000, up 61.2% year-on-year. Among them, the MG brand sold over 190,000 vehicles in Europe in the first half, up over 20%, and is aiming for 400,000 sales for the full year.

This gives SAIC a buffer. The domestic market price war is ongoing, and scale automakers need to maintain capacity utilization and cost advantages, so overseas markets will become increasingly important. In recent years, the earliest overseas expansion was the MG’s globalization curve.

But overseas growth is entering a more challenging stage. Wang Xiaoqiu mentioned at the shareholders’ meeting that SAIC faces risks of punitive tariffs in Europe and is advancing local production there. Overseas markets now require not just selling cars, but dealing with tariffs, local manufacturing, supply chain and channel efficiency.

Thus, the mid-year sales crown is more like a periodic assessment for SAIC. It proves SAIC still has scale capability, and shows its own brands, new energy, and overseas segments are carrying more weight.

What really determines if SAIC can keep its top spot is whether its joint venture segment can be revitalized.

From the information released at the shareholders’ meeting, SAIC has brought this issue to the forefront. SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC GM will participate in global market competition in the next two to three years, and the joint venture system is shifting from “technology introduction” to a product definition more oriented towards the Chinese market.

Starting in 2025, SAIC GM’s new models will be defined by SAIC GM and PATAC, with digital and intelligent functions developed mainly by the Chinese team; SAIC Volkswagen will also increase the involvement of its Chinese team in key areas like smart cabins and intelligent driving.

This is a deep shift in the joint venture model. Previously, the core logic of joint ventures was for the foreign side to provide technology and brand, while the Chinese side provided market and channels. Now, the main battleground for new energy and intelligent vehicles is in China, where user needs change fastest, supply chain responds quickest, and software iterates the fastest. If product definition remains in overseas headquarters, joint venture brands will struggle to keep pace with the Chinese market.

What SAIC must do is not just launch a few more new energy cars under joint venture brands, but bring product definition, technology selection, and ecosystem cooperation rights more back to China.

This is also why SAIC is opening its proprietary technologies to joint venture brands. According to the shareholders’ meeting, SAIC's self-developed Galaxy Intelligence Drive and semi-solid-state battery technology will be opened to both joint venture brands, to close the core technology gap in electrification. SAIC Group President Jia Jianxu also gave a timeline: gross profit for joint venture new energy models will recover continuously in the second half of 2026, and overall stable profitability for the two joint venture segments is expected in 2027.

This timeline is crucial. It shows that SAIC's mid-year sales crown cannot be directly equated with successful transformation. The second half of 2026 and 2027 will be the key windows for whether the joint venture segment can again contribute profits and growth.

The mid-year sales crown has regained SAIC’s position, but it is not an easily defended one.

In the past, SAIC kept first place using its joint venture system. Now, it must rely on its own brands, new energy, overseas markets, and ongoing joint venture restructuring to prove it can still stay on top.

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