BBA Sales in China Plummet to Levels Not Seen in a Decade

In 2025, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi (collectively known as BBA) experienced a collective sales decline in the Chinese market, with total deliveries falling by approximately 260,000 units year-over-year—a drop of 12.3%. Specifically, Mercedes-Benz sales plunged 19% to 551,900 units, BMW declined 12.5% to 625,500 units, and Audi dropped 4.9% to 617,000 units. More alarmingly, both Mercedes-Benz and BMW have already revised down their 2026 sales forecasts for locally produced models to below 500,000 units—levels last seen in 2015–2016. Meanwhile, China’s premium vehicle market as a whole grew by 2%, with sales of new-energy luxury vehicles surging by 45%. Domestic high-end models such as the Aito M9, M8, and Li Auto L8 have rapidly captured market share previously held by BBA. A critical weakness for BBA has been their lagging electrification and insufficient intelligence capabilities—their all-electric models account for less than 13% of their China sales, far below the market average. To address this crisis, BBA is accelerating localized partnerships: Mercedes-Benz is collaborating with Momenta to develop an intelligent driving system, BMW is launching a long-wheelbase version of its next-generation iX3, and Audi is teaming up with Huawei to integrate its Qiankun intelligent driving solution. The year 2026 will be pivotal in determining whether BBA can regain consumer trust in China.