Germany's Carmakers in Crisis: China Is No Longer a Sales Market
According to Berlin's daily newspaper, the crisis facing German automakers is dragging down Germany's trade with China. China is no longer their sales market.
In 2024, automobiles remained Germany’s most important export commodity to China; however, they have now dropped to third place, bringing profound implications.
Data released by Germany’s Federal Statistical Office on Monday shows that from January to May 2026, Germany’s total imports from China rose by 6.2% year-on-year to €72.4 billion, while exports to China fell sharply by 14.5% year-on-year to €29.6 billion.
China remains Germany’s most important trading partner outside the European Union, but Germany now imports more goods from China than it exports to China. Many everyday products in Germany depend heavily on imports from China. For example, four out of five laptops and two out of three smartphones sold in Germany are made in China, and a significant portion of solar equipment also comes from China.
Yet German companies long enjoyed substantial profits from operations in China, particularly German automakers, who regarded China as one of their most critical sales markets. In 2023, Volkswagen (Volkswagen) recorded its last full-year sales growth globally, selling 9.4 million vehicles worldwide—approximately one in every three was delivered to the Chinese market. However, almost none of these vehicles were electric cars. Like BMW and Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen has long relied on internal combustion engine vehicle sales.
Now, this strategy is increasingly backfiring on German carmakers. Last year, Volkswagen’s sales in China dropped to 2.69 million units. BMW and Mercedes-Benz are similarly struggling with declining sales in this second-most populous country in the world, after India.
This shift is directly reflected in Germany’s trade structure with China. In 2024, Germany’s automotive exports to China reached €20.3 billion, still the highest-value export item to China. However, in the first five months of 2026, automotive exports were surpassed by machinery, data processing equipment, and electrical and optical products, dropping to third place among Germany’s exports to China. The reason? German car sales in China plummeted by about one-third in 2025, and then declined further by more than a quarter from January to May 2026.
Moreover, another figure causing growing concern for Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz: currently, 23.5% of all electric vehicles imported into Germany come from China.
Source: rfi
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1871481003028483/
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