Market Insight: GWM’s rise to Aussie top 10

IT HAS taken just 15 years for GWM (Great Wall Motors) to rise from an unknown outlier to a top 10 automotive brand in Australia. 

Year-to-date sales for GWM now top 17,351 with 3820 units sold in May alone. For the fifth month of 2024, GWM placed ninth on the VFACTS sales ladder, holding a 3.4 per cent share of the total new car market. 

Entering the Australian market on 24 June 2009 under the stewardship of independent importer Ateco Automotive, the Chinese manufacturer launched with the SA220 and V240 utes (respectively named Sailor and Wingle in their home market). 

The entry point to the range (SA220 4x2) was priced from just $19,990 drive-away. 

Sales were expectedly slow in the first six months, as Aussie buyers braved the move away from stalwart marques toward the Chinese newcomer. 

Between its mid-2009 launch to December 31 of that year, Great Wall (as it was first known) sold just 1907 units – or around one-tenth that of number-one Toyota (200,991) and number-two Holden (119,568). 

Great Wall’s first full calendar year in the Australian market (2010) yielded far stronger results. The importer sold three-and-a-half times more vehicles than it did the year prior with 6690 sales, helped by the October 2009 arrival of a SUV called X240. 

At the time, Great Wall was the only Chinese car-maker in the Australian market – a far cry from the diversity of Chinese-made offerings now available – and soon to arrive – in this market. 

Growth was steadier in 2011, with Great Wall selling 8665 vehicles in a hotly contested market. 

The importer cracked the one per cent share mark in 2012, helped by a long-awaited automatic X200 SUV arriving in February of that year, contributing to 11,006 sales.  
 

But volume fell dramatically in 2013 with just 6105 units – fewer than those recorded during its second year in the market. 

It got worse still in 2014 with just 2637 units sold and a poor 0.2 per cent market share, matching its penetration after just six months in Australian dealerships. 

Great Wall flatlined in 2015 with just 142 sales as Ateco Automotive pulled the pin on the brand. 

A dispute over the distribution rights to the brand wreaked havoc with sales – and the brand’s reputation. It sold just 110 units of agieng stock in 2016 – the same year it became a factory-owned entity. 

Under the care of Great Wall Motors Australia (GWMA), sales of Great Wall vehicles began a slow resurgence. There were 404 vehicles sold throughout 2017 including the newly introduced Steed. 

Sales rose steadily across the latter part of the decade but would take several years to return to the peak seen in 2012. 

Rebranded as GWM for 2021 – and with a substantially broadened and improved model line – sales grew dramatically to 18,384 units. 

This was one of the largest single-year increases ever witnessed in the Australian market, albeit aided by combining the increasingly popular Haval SUV line-up into GWM’s overall sales figures and rebranding those models as GWM Haval. 

Further gains were achieved in 2022 as the brand topped 25,000 sales and crossed the 2.0 per cent market share line for the first time. Chinese-made cars now tallied 122,845 units annually with brands including BYD and LDV establishing strong footholds in the new car landscape along with Tesla’s Shanghai-sourced Model 3 and Model Y. 

Last year (2023), GWM amassed an impressive 36,397 sales for the calendar year, taking a 3.0 per cent share of the marketplace and ranking eighth outright for the month of December. 

As of May 2024, GWM has achieved 17,351 unit sales for a 3.4 per cent market share – a run rate that could result in the car-maker's first 40,000-unit year in Australia. 

It now ranks ninth on the sales chart selling multiple models across the small passenger, small SUV, medium SUV, large SUV, 4x2 ute, and 4x4 ute segments. 

In addition to the eponymous GWM Cannon ute, the car-maker offers three sub-brands locally comprising Haval, Ora and Tank across which it sells all-electric, petrol-electric hybrid, and petrol- and diesel-powered models. 

GWM Australia did not respond to GoAuto’s request for comment during the production of this article.