Japan has long been the dominant country globally when it comes to exporting cars, followed by Germany and South Korea who also diligently manufacture cars for customers outside their own borders.
But now China is on its way to quickly overtake these three countries and become the world’s largest car exporter according to Cars scoops.
Looking at the figures from 2023, the overtaking is actually already a fact.
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An explosive increase
Early signs that this was about to happen were already seen in the first quarter of 2023, when China exported more cars than Japan.
Now it seems that China managed to keep this lead throughout 2023.
China exported 4.41 million cars from January to November 2023, which according to Nikkei Asia is an increase of 58 percent compared to the same period in 2022.
In the first eleven months of the year, Japan exported 3.99 million cars, which is an increase of 15 percent, but is roughly 9.5 percent below what China exported.
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Betting heavily on Russia
That China exports so many cars may seem surprising to us Westerners, as Chinese car manufacturers have just started selling cars in Europe and barely exist in the US. In countries such as Russia and Mexico, however, they are already well established.
According to Nikkei Asia, Chinese manufacturers sold a whopping 730,000 cars in Russia between January and October 2023, which is a sevenfold increase compared to the previous year.
This has certainly been helped by the fact that most of the major car manufacturers from other countries have boycotted the Russian market due to the war in Ukraine.
In Mexico, 330,000 cars were sold between January and October 2023.
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Not just domestic brands
The Chinese export figures are not only a result of domestic brands advancing in the industry.
It is also about Western brands building a lot of cars in China for export.
These include Tesla, BMW, Volvo and Buick, which among other things sell cars built in China in Europe.
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