Come later this year, no less than 22 Chinese vehicle brands will be present in South Africa, excluding truck manufacturer, First Automotive Works (FAW).
Growing list
At present, these include:
- BAIC;
- BYD;
- Changan;
- Chery;
- Deepal;
- DFSK;
- Dongfeng;
- GAC;
- Geely;
- Great Wall Motors (GWM) Haval;
- JAC;
- Jaecoo;
- Jetour;
- JMC;
- LDV;
- Leapmotor;
- MG;
- Omoda
Those joining this year include BYD-owned Denza, Furizon, Zeekr, and Riddara from Geely, as well as iCaur and Lepas, which fall under Chery ownership.
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Worth noting is that neither BYD, DFSK, nor GAC, Geely and LDV submit sales figures to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa), while those of Changan and Deepal are still small as they only began submitting in November.
Uncertainty, however, hangs over Dongfeng, which has done little since showing the all-electric Box at the end of 2024.
GWM and Chery domination
In a market still dominated by legacy brands, Chery and GWM -minus their respective divisional brands – accounted for the biggest Chinese presence, with regular top 10 brand finishes.
Having marked 18 years since entering South Africa as one of the original brands from the People’s Republic, Baoding-based GWM edged its rival from Wuhu overall with total sales of 27 237 versus 25 304.
The latter, however, ended the year with the best-selling Chinese model, the Tiggo 4, of which 21 831 were sold throughout the year.
This also includes figures of the Tiggo Cross, which, since November, have been incorporated instead of reported separately.
A year in which the local automotive industry recorded a full year of sales increases, with an eventual total of 596 818 units – 15.7% up on 2024’s 516 976 – GWM’s Haval Jolion finished second on 13 607.
Taking third, Chery-owned Omoda’s C5 registered 8 475 unit sales, followed by the combined GWM P Series bakkie range on 4 928 originally made-up of the P Series and P500, now comprising the latter and the facelift version of the former called the P300.
Taking fifth, the Chery Tiggo 7 recorded sales of 4 886, narrowly beating its arch rival, the GWM Haval H6, on 4 713.
Having made significant in-roads towards the end of 2025 with the runaway success of the T2, and to a lesser extent the T1, Jetour’s Dashing finished seventh on 4 653, followed by its seven-seat stablemate, the X70 Plus, with 3 118.
Only posting its figures from February, Foton ended the year ninth with 2 329 Tunland G7 bakkies moved, with the top 10 being completed by BAIC’s locally-made Beijing X55.
Top 15
In full, the 15 best-selling Chinese vehicles of 2025 are as follows:
- Chery Tiggo 4 – 21 831
- GWM Haval Jolion – 13 607
- Omoda C5 – 8 475
- GWM P-Series – 4 298
- Chery Tiggo 7 – 4 886
- GWM Haval H6 – 4 713
- Jetour Dashing – 4 653
- Jetour X70 Plus – 3 118
- Foton Tunland G7 – 2 329
- Beijing X55 – 2 124
- Jaecoo J7 – 2 122
- Chery Tiggo 8 – 1 993
- JAC T-Series – 1 991
- GWM Tank 300 – 1 560
- GWM Steed – 1 460
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