- Significant market falls for established OEMs
- Top three fastest growing brands in November 2025 new car sales are all Chinese
- OEMs look set to meet ZEV mandate
- Woeful DS outsold by Maserati
ESTABLISHED brands Mercedes, Peugeot, MG, BMW and MINI all saw significant falls in new car registrations in November.
The decrease in volume from these five brands totalled almost 12,000 cars; that’s 8% of the month’s 151,000 total. The overall market ended up down ‘only’ 2,456 units for the month, equivalent to a drop of 1.6%.
Mercedes, which has been having a poor year, recorded a fall of nearly 3,000 cars in November compared with the same month last year. That’s a drop of 36%.
Peugeot, which until October had been enjoying a strong year, saw registrations down just over 3,000 cars in November.
BMW and MINI lost a combined 4,000 registrations in the month, with MINI taking the brunt of that loss.
MG, meanwhile, dropped just over 1,600 cars.
MG may be Chinese-owned, but has been in the UK in its present form for almost 15 years so doesn’t fit into the category of ‘new entrant’.
New entrant surge
Those Chinese brands that are new entrants did particularly well in November, as they have done all year.
Chery-owned Jaecoo, which did not exist in the UK a year ago, gained the greatest volume of any brand in November taking nearly 3,400 registrations. Combined with sister brands Omoda and Chery, the group now accounts for 2.5% of the market year-to-date. And in November this share was a significant 4.3%.
Chinese brands hit 16.2% market share of November new car market
One year ago, Chinese-owned brands accounted for 8.5% of the UK new car market. Today the year-to-date share for these brands stands at 13.2%, and in November that hit 16.2%.
This new entrant surge is powering the market and keeping it in positive territory, at least for the year-to-date. In the first 11 months of 2025, the UK new car market is up 3.4% at 1.87 million vehicles.
Possibly more significant is the November data: overall the month was down 1.6%. But take into account the gains made by the new entrants and the picture looks far worse for the majority of the market.
Top 5 fastest growing brands YTD
Bottom 5 fastest shrinking brands YTD*
1 BYD 36,307
2 Jaecoo 24,418
3 Omoda 15,222
4 Peugeot 14,736
5 Volkswagen 12,709
5 Citroen -9,352
4 Nissan -9,621
3 Mercedes -12,329
2 Audi -12,400
1 SEAT -12,978
* Jaguar has exited the market and so is not in this chart
Source: SMMT
Electrification watch
Retailers we spoke to in the month reported shrinking margins as car buyers had less confidence in the economy. Anecdotally, the late November Budget from the Chancellor and the preceding leaks about tax hikes meant many buyers delayed or cancelled decision making. Indeed, Ford Managing Director Lisa Brankin, interviewed on BBC 5Live, said this was exactly the case for her customers, particularly with electric cars in relation to the pay-per-mile scheme.
Registrations broken down by fuel type don’t yet offer a lot of detail about the impact of the Budget. However, battery electric car registrations are running up 26% year-to-date and now account for 22.7% of the market. That’s short of the government’s ZEV Mandate for 2025 of 28%, but with CO2 adjustments taking into account hybrids and plug-in hybrids, most manufacturers are expected to meet their targets and avoid fines.
Several retailers who spoke to Broker News said they expected December to see a push on EVs by most car makers and a restriction on ICE vehicles to make sure targets were secure. One added that some OEMs which were confident of hitting their mandated EV share were pushing additional EV registrations into 2026 to help with next year’s 33% target.
Maserati outguns DS
- November saw Maserati register almost three times as many cars as Stellantis sister brand DS; admittedly this was 20 plays 7. But…
- Suzuki, which has just launched its first EV called the eVitara, saw registrations up 81% for the month.
- After a difficult start to 2025, Ford is now up almost 7% on 2024.
Main image: AI generated
Read our analysis of October new car registrations
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Tristan Young is an award winning journalist with more than 25 years’ experience reporting on the automotive industry focussing predominantly on fleet and retail. As a self-confessed petrol-head, Tristan has a weakness for car classifieds. When he’s not writing about the automotive industry, he can usually be found outdoors with a small pack of border collies.
