Video: The car manufacturer winners and losers of 2025 – Car Dealer Magazine
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James Baggott
10:59 am, January 7, 2026
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Chinese car manufacturers were the fastest growing car brands last year as buyers switched their allegiances and dumped legacy firms.
BYD and Omoda were by far and away the fastest growing manufacturers of 2025, clocking up rises of 485% and 447% respectively on the year before.
BYD – the world’s largest seller of electric cars last year – found homes for 51,422 cars in the UK, up for just under 9,000 in 2024.
Omoda registered 19,855 cars in 2025 up from under 4,000 in 2024 when it arrived late in the year.
Polestar was the third largest growing brand, increasing its sales by 95% to 16,959 registrations up from just under 9,000 the year before.
Jaecoo – the brand which produces a Chinese version of the Range Rover Evoque – rose a staggering 13,408% in the year but only launched in January 2025. It still managed to sell an incredible 28,232 units.
Source: SMMT annual car sales figures for 2025
The growth of the Chinese car brands last year came at the expense of a number of traditional manufacturers which saw sales fall drastically in 2025.
Excluding Jaguar, which saw sales drop nearly 90% after a strategic decision to stop selling cars ahead of its relaunch, Abarth and Fiat saw the biggest impact to their numbers.
Abarth sales fell a whopping 71.7% during the year with just 291 cars finding homes. In 2024 the brand only managed 1,027 sales.
Fiat saw sales drop 38.5% shifting under 9,000 cars, while Seat, the now poorer cousin of Cupra, saw sales drop almost as much at 37.4% with 23,015 cars sold in 2025.
Source: SMMT annual car sales figures for 2025
There was also change at the top of the charts with Ford managing to muscle itself back into the top three best selling car brands.
The revival for the Blue Oval came at the expense of Audi which saw registrations fall 9.2% and a relegation to fifth in the sales chart.
Source: SMMT annual car sales figures 2025
Ford clocked up nearly 119,000 registrations with sales up 8.2% during the year.
Volkswagen regained their title as the best selling car brand in the UK with nearly 179,000 car sales during the year. Sales for the firm were up 7.4%.
Whilst still in the top 10 best sellers list, BMW, Audi, Toyota, Nissan and Mercedes Benz all saw sales fall in 2025.
James is the founder and editor-in-chief of Car Dealer Magazine, and CEO of parent company Baize Group. James has been a motoring journalist for more than 20 years writing about cars and the car industry.
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