GAC Group's 2025: Reform to Build Dams, Resilience to Seek Growth

In the deeply reshaped automotive industry and with domestic market competition intensifying in 2025, China’s automotive market’s intelligent electric transformation enters a deep-water zone, shifting market competition from a single product comparison to a comprehensive contest of the company’s entire system capabilities. For GAC Group, this year is not a gentle structural optimization but a systemic reform that pushes deeper and cuts into itself.

In 2025, GAC Group achieved a total operating revenue of 96.54B yuan, with the entire group selling 1.7215 million vehicles and 1.8135 million units at the terminal. Against the backdrop of the industry generally facing “incremental volume without profit increase” and traditional automakers under transformation pressure, GAC Group delivered a report card of “short-term pressure, long-term improvement, and a clear inflection point” through a profound self-revolution—first-time surpassing 50% in energy-saving and new energy vehicle sales share, product structure leap; three consecutive quarters of month-on-month sales growth, continuous recovery of operating fundamentals; organizational reform, R&D breakthroughs, and global expansion advancing simultaneously, with a series of reform measures taking effect.

From actions, GAC did not choose to shrink and avoid risks but instead sought efficiency through reform and quality through restructuring, providing a real example of a large automaker navigating deep waters through reform.

Structural leap and efficiency revolution awaken endogenous power

2025 is a full year for GAC Group to implement the Panyu Action, during which the company promoted fundamental optimization of product structure. Financial data shows that in 2025, GAC Group’s cumulative sales of energy-saving and new energy vehicles reached 888.2k units, surpassing 50% of total sales for the first time, reaching 51.60%, a significant increase of about 6 percentage points over 2024. This means GAC Group no longer relies solely on traditional fuel vehicles as its main force but has entered a new battlefield driven by both new energy and energy-saving technologies.

For a large automotive group, crossing this threshold is no easy feat. To achieve this transformation, GAC Group has made great efforts, fully implementing the “multi-energy coexistence” strategy. Facing fierce debates over technical routes within the industry, GAC Group has always adhered to market demand as the core, building a comprehensive technical system covering pure electric (EV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV), hybrid (HEV), range-extended (REEV), and fuel cell technologies, maximizing coverage of different consumer scenarios. Among them, the annual sales of new energy vehicles reached 433.6k units, with the share rising from 22.7% in 2024 to 25.19%; energy-saving vehicle sales reached 454.6k units, achieving a countercyclical YoY growth, with the share increasing to 26.41%. This has formed a healthy product matrix of “accelerated pure electric and supported hybrid,” demonstrating strategic resilience amid industry price wars.

The coordinated recovery of independent and joint venture sectors has become the core support for GAC Group’s operations in 2025. In the independent brand camp, GAC Trumpchi accelerated its intelligent electric transformation through a “self-research + cooperation” dual drive, with annual new energy vehicle sales surpassing 150k units. The Trumpchi MPV family has accumulated over 800k units sold, ranking first in China brand MPV residual value for five consecutive years. The Trumpchi E8 has maintained the top spot in new energy MPV sales for 17 consecutive months, becoming a benchmark product for Chinese brands in the high-end family market. GAC Aion and GAC Hozon have achieved coordinated efforts on “pure electric + range extension” dual technical routes. Driven by new products like Aion U and Aion i60, since June 2025, sales have increased month-on-month for seven consecutive months, with market momentum steadily rising. Especially after launching the independent brand BU pilot in December 2025, Hozon Aion BU, as the first operational unit, achieved a significant YoY sales increase of 171.63% in its second month (January 2026), reaching 21.6k units, fully validating the vitality of organizational reform.

According to plans, in 2026, GAC will continue to introduce new products supported by its lineup, with the independent brands planning to launch more than nine all-new or facelift models, building differentiated barriers and achieving a competitive advantage of “what we have others don’t, and what we do better.”

Meanwhile, the joint venture sector demonstrated strong operational stability and transformation results amid industry pressure. GAC Toyota achieved a full-year sales of 756k units, a YoY increase of 2.44%, becoming one of the few top joint ventures to grow positively against the trend. Sales of energy-saving and new energy models surged by 27.27% YoY, accounting for 62.2% of total sales, with remarkable results in intelligent electric transformation, firmly stabilizing the group’s basic operations. GAC Honda, after adjusting its product structure, achieved five consecutive months of MoM sales growth starting August 2025.

More valuable than sales recovery is the efficiency revolution across the entire chain achieved through organizational reform. The three-year “Panyu Action” initiated a systematic, deep-level organizational change, primarily reconstructing the traditional hierarchical organization into a matrix structure centered on markets and users, accelerating the company’s response to market changes. Over the past year, GAC Group improved product planning efficiency by 30%, product approval review efficiency by 67%, demand decision-making efficiency by 85%, and compressed new vehicle development cycles to 18-21 months, speeding up progress.

In an industry where “fast fish eat slow fish,” increased efficiency means companies can launch products that meet consumer needs at lower R&D and operational costs—precisely the capability that enables sustainable development amid fierce competition.

Data shows that the results of this efficiency revolution are already emerging: since Q2 2025, GAC Group has achieved three consecutive quarters of MoM sales growth, with the growth rate continuously expanding. In Q4 2025, sales exceeded 537.8k units, with the second half of the year increasing nearly 30% over the first half, indicating a clear trend of fundamental recovery. This growth trend continued into 2026: January–February, cumulative sales increased by 3% YoY to 203.1k units, including GAC Aion up 48.69%, GAC Trumpchi up 39.92%, and GAC Toyota up 11.94%.

Expanding globally, the second growth curve accelerates

If product structure optimization and organizational reform are the “ship” that carries GAC Group through the transformation cycle, then continuous technological deepening and globalization are the “ballast” that steers it toward high-quality development. Facing technological changes in the global automotive industry, GAC Group insists that “technology is the primary productive force.” In 2025, rather than shrinking R&D investment, the company continued to tackle core technologies, building a full-chain capability covering electrification and intelligence, creating a long-term technological moat.

Financial data shows that by the end of 2025, GAC Group’s cumulative R&D investment exceeded 62 billion yuan, with over 24.9k patent applications, including more than 11.2k invention patents. Advanced technologies have gradually been implemented: in electrification, GAC’s self-developed “Star Source Range Extender” technology achieved an 3.73 kWh/L oil-electric conversion efficiency and is now equipped on models like Aion i60. In battery technology, GAC has the capacity for mass production of 60Ah+ automotive-grade solid-state batteries, expected to be in volume production by 2026, potentially breaking through in next-generation electrification tech. The company also made breakthroughs in fuel cells, electric drive, and electronic control, forming an autonomous “Three Electric” system.

In intelligence, GAC covers a full scene chain from L2 driver assistance to L4 high-level autonomous driving. It is among the first domestic automakers approved for a 120 km/h “L3-specific scenario autonomous driving road test” license. Focused on commercializing high-level autonomous driving, GAC’s mobility service arm, Qiyun Mobility, operates about 600 Robotaxis in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, accumulating rich experience for large-scale L4 autonomous commercial operation.

While continuously deepening in the domestic market, GAC regards global layout as a core long-term strategy. In 2025, overseas sales saw a leap forward. Financial data shows that GAC’s overseas terminal sales of independent brands approached 130k units, a significant 48% YoY increase, demonstrating the “GAC speed” of Chinese brands going abroad amid intensified global competition. In product deployment, GAC launched five new models and four facelift models overseas, covering different regional markets’ needs; in market expansion, it opened 16 new overseas markets including Brazil, Poland, and Australia, with over 280 overseas service outlets, forming a global marketing and service network covering Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe, and Oceania.

Currently, GAC has established core overseas manufacturing bases in Thailand and Mexico, creating a “local production + local R&D + local marketing” global operation system. With a localization strategy, it enhances product competitiveness abroad. In 2026, GAC aims to double overseas sales to 250k units, plan to add 1,000 new overseas outlets, and build an integrated ecosystem of finance, energy supply, and services, upgrading from “selling products” to “selling solutions.”

Based on a solid ballast, GAC actively plans future mobility ecosystems and accelerates the cultivation of the second growth curve. In the flying car field, GAC’s flying car brand, Gaoyou, has established a factory, creating a full-scene product matrix covering short-range multi-rotor flying cars and intercity hybrid winged flying cars. The multi-rotor GOVY AirCab has received nearly 2,000 pre-orders, with a first urban scene flight demonstration in Guangzhou scheduled for March 2026, and mass delivery expected by year-end, aiming to seize the city air mobility market first. In humanoid robots, GAC has incubated Hui Lun Technology, which has successfully developed four generations of embodied intelligent humanoid robots. The fourth-generation product, GoMate Mini, focuses on security scenarios and has achieved demonstration applications, with planned small-batch mass production in 2026, entering the trillion-dollar robot sector. Additionally, GAC has completed full industry chain layouts in energy technology, intelligent connectivity, and automotive finance, forming a “vehicle + ecosystem” collaborative development pattern, injecting continuous new momentum for long-term growth.

In 2025, under the guidance of the “Panyu Action,” GAC Group underwent a self-revolution, proactively breaking new ground. The year marked the start of the three-year “Panyu Action,” a foundational and pillar-building year. Despite experiencing phased pains from transformation, the company’s core competitiveness is undergoing a profound transformation: product structure making historic leap; intelligent electric transformation crossing a key watershed; organizational reform unleashing strong endogenous power; full-chain efficiency leading the industry; technological deepening building a long-term moat; and global expansion accelerating, with the second growth curve taking shape.

Currently, the global automotive industry continues to evolve, and market competition remains fierce. However, through a series of strategic layouts and reforms in 2025, GAC Group has crossed the most difficult hurdles of transformation, entering a new stage of sustained fundamental recovery and growth momentum, transitioning from a traditional manufacturing enterprise to a technology-driven mobility ecosystem enterprise.