隨筆鳳凰: Financial Overview of Global OEMs (Excluding Mainland China) in the First Nine Months of 2025

This article provides an overview of the financial performance of global automotive OEMs, excluding Mainland China, during the first nine months of 2025. The analysis is presented primarily through charts and focuses on the following key indicators:

Vehicle sales volume (thousand units)
Year-over-year growth or decline in sales volume
Revenue (million USD)
Year-over-year growth or decline in revenue
Gross profit (million USD)
Year-over-year growth or decline in gross profit
Gross margin
Net profit (million USD)
Year-over-year growth or decline in net profit
Operating cash flow (OCF, million USD)
Year-over-year growth or decline in OCF
Debt ratio
Research and development (R&D) expenditure (million USD)
R&D expense ratio

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In terms of global vehicle sales, Toyota and Volkswagen remained the clear leaders during the first nine months of 2025, delivering approximately 6.96 million and 6.60 million vehicles respectively. Both figures significantly exceeded BYD, which sold around 3.26 million vehicles over the same period. General Motors also delivered a solid performance, achieving a 6.98% year-over-year increase and selling approximately 4.55 million vehicles.

Looking at year-over-year sales trends across global OEMs, only a limited number of manufacturers—including GM, Renault, BMW, Toyota, and Volkswagen—managed to maintain positive growth. Ford and Hyundai showed little to no meaningful growth, while most other OEMs experienced varying degrees of sales decline.

From a financial perspective, global OEMs (excluding Mainland China) continue to generate higher absolute revenue compared with Chinese domestic brands. However, year-over-year revenue trends broadly mirror sales performance, with most global OEMs reporting revenue contraction. In contrast, as discussed in the previous article, while Chinese domestic OEMs exhibit significant divergence in performance, strong growth remains evident among several manufacturers.

This contrast highlights a broader shift in the competitive landscape: the global automotive industry has entered an increasingly intense phase of competition. Although gross profit and net profit among global OEMs have also generally declined on a year-over-year basis, their overall profitability remains stronger than that of Chinese domestic OEMs. In other words, many Chinese brands are prioritizing market share expansion at the expense of profit margins, while at the industry level this dynamic reflects a broader transition into a price-driven competitive environment.

For global OEMs outside Mainland China, competitive conditions in 2025 are further complicated by trade policy uncertainty, particularly the re-emergence of “reciprocal tariff” measures proposed by Donald Trump. Under this policy framework, the United States may impose tariffs that mirror those applied by trading partners, potentially affecting automotive imports and cross-border supply chains. Such measures could increase costs for global OEMs with manufacturing or sourcing footprints outside the U.S., disrupt established production networks, and further compress margins in an already highly competitive market. As a result, trade policy risks represent an additional structural headwind for global OEMs as competitive pressures continue to intensify.

This article incorporates 2025 Q3 financial data disclosed by the following companies: