Interest in Chinese cars continues to rise in the Philippines

A few things are changing in the Philippines’ automotive landscape. Certain norms are being challenged and just like how the Koreans disrupted the market and took sales from top-level manufacturers, the Chinese are doing the same with a similar strategy – by offering automobiles with a handful of attractive features, adequate amounts of attractive styling, and quality that is a far cry from what people expect from the land where everything is made. All of this can be had at a price point that is a fraction of the competition’s, and with cars getting more and more expensive, a well-equipped unit that’s affordable will undoubtedly attract some attention – or even sales. 

Most consumers would scoff at a Chinese-made car. There is an undeniable stigma that comes attached to the “Made in China” phrase, and it is a great wall—pun intended—in the way of a sale. That’s not the case anymore, according to our 2021 Industry Insights.

While not much has changed for the industry giants in the country, data that we gathered from the traffic generated on our site, shows that some Chinese brands have made their way into the top 20 automotive brands for 2021. We see examples such as Geely, Chery, Maxus, and Changan which were once unknown automakers slowly climb the rankings, showing that there is an interest in feature-packed and affordable Chinese vehicles in the country.

The same can be said for our top 20 most inquired nameplates in 2021. While Japanese, South Korean, and American vehicles still dominate the list a few Chinese options have snuck their way in and have ranked well. Such is the case for the Geely Coolray which has made it into the top 10 placing 9th respectively. This goes to show that even with a sea of options available Chinese nameplates are slowly being searched for by the car-buying public.

Data on the top 3 models per body type shows a strong representation of Chinese vehicles, especially within the crossover segment. We see the MG ZS place 3rd in the subcompact crossover segment, the Chery TIggo 7 Pro place 2nd in the compact crossover segment, and the Foton Gratour make its way into 3rd place for the van segment. Given this data, we can safely say that interest in these Chinese products is going strong and will probably continue in the next few years especially as these vehicles come with extremely competitive prices (between P1 million to P1.5 million) and come with an impressive array of features that are shaping the standards customers want to have in their vehicles today.