Gasgoo Munich- At the 14th Automobile & Environment Innovation Forum and the 8th Gasgoo Awards ceremony "China Solutions, Global Value", Gasgoo CEO and Editor-in-Chief Zhou Xiaoying delivered a keynote address. She shared her insights and outlook on China's auto industry, centering on the shift from scale leadership to value reconstruction.
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Zhou pointed out that scale growth and value creation in the auto industry are currently diverging, signaling the sector has entered a period of structural adjustment.
With 2026 marking the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan, domestic auto sales fell more than 20% in the first nine months, and the traditional "Golden September, Silver October" peak failed to materialize. Yet passenger-car exports have already topped 7 million units — surpassing full-year totals of previous years.
The divergence between sluggish domestic demand and robust exports is deepening. The industry faces an evident problem: rising volumes without revenue growth, and higher revenue without profit gains. Export earnings can barely plug the domestic profit gap. The price war, Zhou noted, has persisted for four years. While it accelerates the redistribution of market share, it fails to create industrial value — and remains unsustainable.
Data from the Gasgoo Research Institute shows that domestic new-energy penetration now exceeds 56%, with domestic brands holding a 72% market share. Yet the concentration ratio of the top five players stands at just 47.1% — compared with 87.9% in Japan, 66.1% in the US, and 60.7% in Europe. This suggests that industry consolidation in China is only just beginning, and the market has yet to reach a sustainable equilibrium.
Zhou pointed out that the 15th Five-Year Plan period will likely bring significant industry consolidation and turbulence. On the policy front, governance is expanding from price regulation to capacity control and sector restructuring. On the consumer side, the buyer demographic has fundamentally shifted: replacement and additional purchases are now the dominant demand, with most buyers leaning toward new brands when they return to the market. "Every purchase is a chance for a new brand to gain traction," Zhou said — a core reason why China hosts so many brands and constant new-model launches. On the export front, a growing number of companies realize that global competition must shift from product trade to localized manufacturing and operations. Multi-regional coordination capability is gradually becoming the core differentiator in Chinese automakers' global expansion.
Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan, Zhou argued that Chinese brands must not only focus inward on core models to build popular models, but also accelerate localized manufacturing abroad to meet overseas market demands. They must leverage smart technology to reshape production efficiency and workflows, return to business fundamentals, and drive profitability through efficiency.
