The Chinese car brands are staking an ever-larger segment of the Australian new-vehicle market, but accounting firm BDO has said that “the pace of dealer expansion is unlikely to be sustainable.”
According to BDO automotive partner Sam Venn, who is presenting today’s Australian Automotive Dealer Association (AADA) event, Chinese automakers made up 24 per cent of the market in the first two months of 2026, up from 14 percent last year.
That has been rapid growth for s. China automakers consolidated up 62 per cent year-on-year, according to one of BDO’s market slides. At this time the market was down by 2 per cent, or about 3200 units (or around 3100 units) over the same period; Toyota and Mazda volume were down 6. 11,725 units or 5 per cent, or 11 per.
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It’s a meaningful shift for that market, which typically does not move this quickly in the short term, to say “I don’t think it is so,” and that’s what says. Moreover, it also helps explain why dealers are trying hard to secure representations for new Chinese brands and sub-brands when the more traditional franchises face under pressure from pricing, model changeovers and lower front-end gross.
Mr Venn’s more general message was that volume headlines only tell part of the story. But the more important question is whether the current number of brands, distributor structures and dealer points can actually be able to support viable returns over the medium term? But BDO’s view on that front was a bit of oblique, blunt.
“It’s not sustainable. It’s as simple as that,” he said.
A clearest proof of this is in BDO’s rooftop efficiency slide (sales per dealer per month), which compares established brands with Chinese new entrants based on December 2025 new car sales figures data. BDO’below are figures shared by .
| Traditional brands | Dealers | 2025 volume | Avg monthly sales per dealer |
| — | — | — | — |
| Toyota | 276 | 239,863 | 72 |
| Mazda | 141 | 91,923 | 54 |
| Kia | 144 | 82,105 | 48 |
| BMW | 48 | 26,842 | 47 |
| Ford | 194 | 94,399 | 41 |
| Hyundai | 166 | 77,208 | 39 |
| Mercedes-Benz | 63 | 22,850 | 30 |
| Mitsubishi | 189 | 61,198 | 27 |
| Subaru | 119 | 39,005 | 27 |
| Volkswagen | 102 | 28,970 | 24 |
| Average | | | 41 |
| Chinese brands | Dealers | 2025 volume | Avg monthly sales per dealer |
| — | — | — | — |
| BYD | 91 | 52,415 | 48 |
| Chery | 86 | 34,889 | 34 |
| GWM | 120 | 52,415 | 36 |
| MG | 115 | 41298 | 30 |
| Zeekr | 12 | 1994 | 13 |
| LDV | 96 | 14108 | 12 |
| Geely | 43 | 5010 | 7 |
| Leapmotor | 12 | 644 | 4 |
| JAC | 46 | 1582 | 3 |
| Deepal | 18 | 481 | 2 |
Of the traditional players, Toyota sold 72 a.m. per roof-per-month sales of Mazda 54, Kia 48 (Motahian 47), Ford 41 (Hyunda 39), Mercedes-Benz 30, Mitsubishi 27, Subaru 27 and Volkswagen 24 (2nds)). It was 41 per cent of the top-10 average for s.
Several brands are already operating at a similar level on the Chinese side, such as . BYD had 48 sales per roof a month, Chery 34 and GWM 36. At 28-year-old MG entered the at 28.
After that, the picture quickly changed after Paraphrasingr. Zeekr starred 13, LDV at 12, Geely at 7, Leapmotor at 4, JAC at 3, and Deepal at 2.
In established networks, they tend to have mature finance, aftersales and service operations behind their emergence of such networks. When front-end margins are squeezed, that is already happening across much of the market and it’s what makes business support that back end,” said a statement in response to “the fact that this has been done for its own part” (i.e.
This means that a new badge on the building can add volume but also has real cost. Before the business has proven that it can generate sustainable revenue through parts and service, dealerships have to fund facilities, staff, marketing, stock and local brand-building.
In BDO’s own slide deck, trade-off is explicit it describes itself as a “front-end v back-ended trade–off for existing dealers looking to sell OEMs”, and also warns that return on investment from facility spend is critical.
Not all of the major Chinese brands are positioned in the same position as their big counterparts, . The bigger names are already maturing and starting to build out the back end, Mr Venn’s presentation suggests, while the long tail still has a fair way to go. And that’s a big difference, because it’t starting to look structurally different at the top of Chinese market than bottom.
The other big risk is offshore . During the presentation, BDO said there is still too many automakers in China; more than 150 domestically operated auto makers are operating. Number is widely tipped to “savagely” reduce in order to achieve financial sustainability without substantial government support, it says.
But the reasons aren’t hard to follow, either. The BDO says that the Chinese EV price wars were brutal, margins have collapsed, oversupply has hurt weaker brands and government policy is shifting away from “propping up industry losses” and towards technological consolidation, mergers and better integration of research, development and supply chains,” according to BDA.
That has direct implications for Australia as a whole. BDO says the survivors will likely be the larger, vertically integrated groups with EV technology, scale and established export networks (BYD, Geely, SAIC Motor (MG), GWM and Chery as examples).
The bigger problem is that Chinese parent companies start merging brands, changing distributor structures or rationalising overlapping dealer networks for Australian dealers and the risk is not just that some brands fail.
Brand closures, distributor changes and forced franchise realignment were also possible for dealers to have their own brand. The two brands of a Chinese parent combined with the other, dealership networks could be completely removed from dealerships if they were to merge.
Despite BDO’s prediction that every Chinese brand will go away, we’d say it’s more likely for some of the well-established European and Japanese brands to quit our market rather than Japan – but still is warning dealer investment decisions made today in a market which may look very different within three or five years.
That risk is also compounded by how quickly the product side is moving.
A BDO says that surviving brands are “expecting aggressively expanding” with rapid model cycles underpinning more launches in Australia, faster price competition and possibly more factory-controlled sales networks.
In other words, the brands that make it through may become even tougher competitors than they already are.
If Chinese brands were just adding choice, the story would be simple. But they’re also reshaping prices, forcing existing brands to respond and drawing dealers into a wave of investment that BDO says may outlast some of the brands themselves.
And that also echoes the message AADA has been pushing to convey through . The dealer body released today’s media release said that 28 brands have travelled to Australia in the last five years, but that increase hasn’t translated into higher dealer profits. It also warned the industry doesn’t want to be in a position where dealerships close and local jobs are lost.
Chinese brands are now too big to be treated as fringe players. Currently, the top end of is joining mainstream market. A matter entirely is the current land grab across all badges, sub-brand and dealer point of a ; but that’s another issue “the same thing as this now does with every badge,” Sub-branded or dealer Point. Some of those bets will pay off but undoubtedly some almost certainly won’t, according to .
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