How many Chinese-brand cars were registered in Great Britain in the last year?

238,761 across MG, BYD, Jaecoo, Omoda, Chery, Leapmotor, Xpeng, Changan and GWM from April 2025 to March 2026. That is 11.6% of all cars registered for the first time in Great Britain, according to DfT figures.

What share of new cars in Britain are Chinese brands?

13.8% in January to March 2026, or 84,976 of 617,894 first registrations. A year earlier the share was 6.9%.

Is MG a Chinese brand?

MG is one of the brands of SAIC Motor, which describes itself as China's top automaker. We count it among the Chinese brands.

Which Chinese car is most popular in Britain?

Over the 12 months to March 2026, the BYD Seal range, with 43,259 first registrations, followed by the Jaecoo 7 with 38,380. In January to March 2026 the Jaecoo 7 was the second most registered model of any brand.

Has BYD overtaken Tesla in Britain?

Yes, on first registrations. BYD had 62,425 in the 12 months to March 2026 against Tesla's 44,307, while a year earlier Tesla had 50,721 and BYD 16,572.

Who makes Omoda and Jaecoo cars?

The Omoda and Jaecoo brand says it belongs to CHERY Group, a leading Chinese car manufacturer. Chery also sells cars in Britain under its own name, with 13,620 first registrations since it arrived in 2025.

Why isn't Polestar counted as a Chinese brand?

Polestar describes itself as born in Sweden, so we have kept it out of the headline figures. Adding its 17,457 registrations would lift the Chinese-brand share of the last 12 months from 11.6% to 12.4%.

Are these new car sales figures?

No. They are cars registered for the first time in Great Britain, which includes some used imports and dealer pre-registrations. Industry sales figures for the UK are measured differently and won't match.

Chinese Car Brands in Britain: 11.6% of New Registrations

Chinese car brands have gone from a niche to more than a tenth of the cars registered new in Britain in a single year. We added up the Department for Transport’s figures for every make to show how fast they’ve grown, which brands and models are driving it, and who they’ve overtaken.

All figures are cars registered for the first time in Great Britain, from April 2025 to March 2026 against the 12 months before. They come from the DfT release published on 15 July 2026, and you can see every make in our new car registrations league tables.

Chinese brands took 11.6% of cars registered for the first time in Great Britain in the 12 months to March 2026, up from 5.4% the year before. In January to March 2026 alone the share was 13.8%, more than 1 in 8 cars.

That’s 238,761 cars out of 2,065,275, against 108,110 out of 1,984,805 a year earlier. Chinese-brand registrations rose 120.9% while the whole market grew just 4.1%.

The quarterly figures show the speed of the change. The share was 4.8% in April to June 2024, 6.9% in January to March 2025 and 13.8% in January to March 2026.

Period	Chinese brands	All cars	Share
April to June 2024	22,059	459,713	4.8%
January to March 2025	40,109	578,284	6.9%
January to March 2026	84,976	617,894	13.8%
12 months to March 2025	108,110	1,984,805	5.4%
12 months to March 2026	238,761	2,065,275	11.6%

Which brands we counted

We counted nine brands: MG, BYD, Jaecoo, Omoda, Chery, Leapmotor, Xpeng, Changan and GWM. MG is one of the brands of SAIC Motor, and Omoda and Jaecoo describe themselves as belonging to CHERY Group, a leading Chinese car manufacturer.

We also count BYD, Leapmotor, Xpeng, Changan and GWM, which sell cars in Britain under their own names. We class a brand as Chinese when its parent carmaker is based in China, so Volvo, Lotus, smart and Polestar are left out of the headline count.

Which Chinese car brands are growing fastest?

BYD is the big mover, up 276.7% to 62,425 registrations in a year. Jaecoo went from 3,433 to 43,933.

Growth by brand

MG is still the biggest Chinese brand by registrations, but it barely grew. MG rose 2.5% to 83,027, while the other eight brands together jumped from 27,111 to 155,734.

That means MG’s slice of the Chinese total fell from 74.9% to 34.8% in a year. The newer names now make up 7.5% of the whole market on their own.

Brand	Jan to Mar 2026	Last 12 months	12 months before	Change	Rank of 62 makes
MG	23,516	83,027	80,999	+2.5%	11
BYD	21,089	62,425	16,572	+276.7%	16
Jaecoo	18,917	43,933	3,433	+1,179.7%	20
Omoda	9,087	25,753	6,832	+276.9%	24
Chery	8,089	13,620	0	New	32
Leapmotor	3,092	7,174	193	New in effect	34
Xpeng	353	1,220	43	New in effect	43
Changan	742	1,103	0	New	44
GWM	91	506	38	New in effect	51
All nine brands	84,976	238,761	108,110	+120.9%

The new arrivals

Omoda nearly quadrupled to 25,753, and Chery added 13,620 under its own badge after first appearing in July to September 2025. Leapmotor went from 193 to 7,174 and Xpeng from 43 to 1,220.

Brands that launch mid-year always show huge percentage jumps, so treat Chery, Leapmotor and Changan as new arrivals rather than risers. BYD and Jaecoo already had a real base a year earlier.

Related: New car registrations league tables

Has BYD overtaken Tesla and Land Rover?

Yes. BYD registered 62,425 cars in Great Britain in the 12 months to March 2026, ahead of Land Rover’s 61,024 and Tesla’s 44,307.

How the order changed in a year

A year earlier Tesla had 50,721 registrations and BYD just 16,572. Since then Tesla has fallen 12.6% and Land Rover 4.0%, while BYD climbed from 28th to 16th among makes.

BYD is now 1,401 cars ahead of Land Rover and 18,118 ahead of Tesla. In January to March 2026 it registered 21,089 cars, close to Land Rover’s 21,415.

Jaecoo is closing on Tesla too

In the 12 months to March 2026, Jaecoo registered 43,933 cars, only 374 behind Tesla. Its first cars were registered in October to December 2024, and it has since jumped from 34th to 20th, passing 14 makes including Cupra, Mazda, Dacia and Honda.

Which Chinese cars are most popular in Britain?

The Jaecoo 7 was Great Britain’s second most registered car in January to March 2026, with 15,559. Only the Ford Puma, on 15,685, had more.

The Jaecoo 7 and the BYD Seal range

The Jaecoo 7 finished just 126 cars behind the Ford Puma, with the BYD Seal range third on 14,316. Over the full 12 months the Seal range ranked third of all models and the Jaecoo 7 fifth.

We say “Seal range” because DVLA’s model name covers more than one car. 55.8% of BYD Seal registrations were plug-in hybrids, so the figure probably includes the Seal U DM-i SUV as well as the electric saloon.

Model	Last 12 months	12 months before	Rank of all models	Main fuel mix
BYD Seal range	43,259	9,078	3	55.8% plug-in hybrid, 44.2% electric
Jaecoo 7	38,380	3,433	5	76.3% plug-in hybrid, 23.7% petrol
MG HS	28,803	29,065	11	40.9% hybrid, 30.7% petrol
MG ZS	22,699	24,902	20	86.0% hybrid
Omoda 5	14,205	4,951	32	Virtually all petrol
MG 3	13,817	11,613	33	83.8% hybrid

MG’s models are mostly down

The MG HS dipped 0.9% and the MG ZS 8.8%. The all-electric MG 4 fell 44.2% to 7,586, while the newer MG S5 reached 7,274.

The Omoda 5 is the odd one out: virtually all of those registered in the last 12 months were petrol. The data can’t tell us why buyers chose each model, only which ones they registered.

Why are plug-in hybrids so important to Chinese brands?

Chinese brands took about a third (31.5%) of plug-in hybrid registrations in the last 12 months, around 76,700 of 243,109. Their share of fully electric registrations was lower, at about 15%.

A plug-in hybrid story as much as an electric one

About two thirds of Jaecoo’s registrations (66.7%) and Chery’s (69.6%) were plug-in hybrids. BYD’s mix was 54.7% electric and 40.5% plug-in hybrid.

These plug-in figures are approximate. We worked them out from each brand’s fuel percentages, which are rounded to one decimal place.

Where Polestar fits

Polestar describes itself as born in Sweden, so we’ve shown it separately. It grew 57.1% to 17,457 registrations.

Counting it would lift the Chinese-brand share of the last 12 months from 11.6% to 12.4%, and the January to March 2026 share from 13.8% to 14.4%.

How reliable are these figures?

They’re official DfT counts of every car registered for the first time in Great Britain. They aren’t sales figures, and they leave out Northern Ireland.

What the numbers include

First registrations include used imports and cars pre-registered by dealers, so they won’t match industry sales totals. The source is table VEH0160 in the DfT’s vehicle licensing statistics for January to March 2026.

Model names follow DVLA’s records, which sometimes group several versions under one name. Our page on how we count registrations explains how we tidy them.

Where to find the raw data

The make and model counts are in the DfT’s vehicle licensing data files, updated every quarter. Rankings here cover the 62 makes in our tables, whose totals add up to within 1,435 cars of the national figure.