Online Reporter
THE days of Ford v Holden feverish brand loyalty are dead: China has shown Australians will ditch allegiances for the unproven . . . as long as they are cheap.
Last month, China’s BYD almost outsold Toyota, while trouncing Ford as Australia’s second best-selling brand.
Four Chinese manufacturers now occupy the top 10 sales chart (GWM, MG, Chery and BYD). In 2020 there were none.
Surging in popularity is Omoda Jaecoo, which has shifted over 10 000 cars despite the brand only landing here a smidge over 12 months ago. The Australian car market has never known anything like it, and it all feels too much, too quickly.
Yet the juggernaut rolls on.
Omoda Jaecoo is just one of Chery Group’s car brands and specialises in feature-packed SUVs. Cheaper Chery-badged SUVs like the Tiggo 4 and Tiggo 7 are doing monumental numbers, the brand outselling Mitsubishi, Nissan and MG so far this year.
Things are soon to get even more saturated.
Chery Group’s Lepas brand arrives in a few months with its electric L6 mid-size SUV, followed in the first half of 2027 by off-road specialist brand iCaur.
Later in 2027, the Freelander stand-alone brand — a joint venture between Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Chery — came to Australia with the three-row Freelander 8 SUV.
It is built on a Chery platform, will be a plug-in hybrid, and features a not-subtle 46.3-inch digital screen running the length of the dashboard. Who the hell is going to sell all these new brands? Where will the showrooms and service centres be? And can we really expect after-sales support to keep pace?
“It will be up to each brand head to look at his network strategy, and whether they want to appoint existing or new dealers,” explained Tim Kreiger, head of public relations for Chery Motors Australia.
There are certainly no plans to amalgamate all the Chery marques in one multi-brand dealership. Each brand will remain stand-alone, much like the Volkswagen Group separating VW, Audi, Skoda and Lamborghini.
Selling the new brands and models is one thing, but what about the important aspects of having enough dealers, service centres, spare parts and rapid warranty support?
Growing too quickly without the building blocks in place could do irreparable reputational damage.
This month, for example, BYD admitted “an administrative error” led to more than 1 200 Australian customers being sold vehicles from the wrong model year and would now offer full refunds to those affected.
A new independent review commissioned by the Australian Automotive Dealer Association (AADA) revealed “significant delays, increased costs and poor consumer outcomes” regarding repairs and refunds under new car warranties. The report said language barriers between the OEM (the car brand) and dealers can exacerbate time delays and “a dealer may face a long wait time for OEM approvals, especially with overseas headquarters”, singling out an unnamed Chinese brand that requires an eight-week approval process for issues costing over US$5 000.
Roy Munoz, chief commercial officer of Omoda Jaecoo Australia, said, while aspiring to be a top 10 brand in Australia, their focus was on “building a sustainable business and expanding our reach; we need to make sure we’re with the right operator in the right location to service those customers”.
He was referring particularly to their popular J5 EV. Krieger, a motor industry veteran, said the Chinese sales surge, especially from BYD, GWM and Chery Group brands, was both extraordinary and like nothing he has previously seen. “Australian consumers have voted with their feet,” he said.
He is not wrong.
In 2026 so far, Toyota’s sales are down by 21.4 percent; Mitsubishi’s by 25.7 percent and Mazda by 17.2 percent, while the Chinese newbies boom.
While highlighting Chery’s significant investments in Australia, including “massive parts warehouses in Melbourne and Sydney”, Kreiger said: “Chery is here to stay, and I’d say the same for BYD, GWM, MG and some of the other brands.” — new.co.au
