24.01.2023 / Chinese car sales by country of manufacture, 2022

According to the marketing agency NAPI, in 2022, China supplied cars of European, American, and Japanese brands manufactured on its territory to Russia, and a total of 2.6 thousand such cars were sold in Russia last year. For example, in September-December, deliveries of Chinese VOLKSWAGEN cars grew at a good pace, although the volume of sales "in units" is still small (0.5 thousand "Chinese" VOLKSWAGEN cars for the entire 2022).

As for HAVAL cars, sales of cars imported from China started in Russia in August. So far, the number of such cars is small – 1.4 thousand units for the entire 2022, but the volume of deliveries grew every month. Following results of 2022, new HAVAL car sales are dominated by cars manufactured in Russia – 96%, but in December, the share of "Russian" cars fell to 81%.

Chinese automakers have several options for working in the Russian market:

- increase the import of Chinese brand cars from China;

- increase the import of Chinese brand cars from neighboring countries (Kazakhstan and Belarus);

- increase the production of Chinese brand cars in Russia, while it is only HAVAL;

- expand the production in Russia in cooperation with Russian partners, following the example of Moskvich and Evolute cars;

- expand the deliveries of "non-Chinese" cars manufactured in China.

Various Chinese automakers will most likely combine the above strategies depending on the political and epidemiological situation, saturation of the domestic Chinese market, working conditions in the Russian market (participation in state support programs, state procurement, and other preferences for manufactured cars).