Chery wants to be one of Australia’s top five best-selling auto brands by 2027, and have another marque – OmodaJaecoo – inside the top 10.
However, Chery Australia chief operating officer Lucas Harris says the goal will be earned through execution rather than rhetoric.
“Any brand that says to you they don’t want to be in the top five is probably telling you porkies… The reality is that not every brand is going to be in the top five,” Mr Harris told CarExpert.
“If we can have a brand in the top three or four, and then another brand inside the top 10, then I think that’s quite good… a successful model.”
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Asked about timing, Mr Harris said the road there won’t be instant.
“If HQ were asking me… they probably want me to say, tomorrow, [but] we’ll get there. I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than that. We’ve still got a lot of work to do with awareness and trust…
“Next year, I think we will still grow. We’ve got some maturity in some of our model lines now, which is becoming more consistent.”
Mr Harris points to the incoming ute as a major growth lever, with Australia a priority market and volume ambitions that indicate a serious tilt at the segment.
“For the ute that’s been developed currently, it’s very much a joint effort between Australia and China, and I think we’ll be the first two markets to get that new [model] from a volume perspective,” he said.
“If we’re not trying to do 1000 a month in that huge segment, then… [otherwise] why bring one?”
Supporting those ambitions is a dealer network, Mr Harris says, that is expanding with an eye on viability as much as coverage. Chery counts about 85 sites today and is “looking at around the 100 mark by the end of next year”, while Omoda Jaecoo sits at just over 40 and is expected to almost double in 12 months.
He also characterises Chery’s current stage as “still an establishing brand”, neither brand‑new nor fully established, which means choices made now matter disproportionately, hinting that some other Chinese auto brands have chased short-term gain for long-term pain.
“We’re in an awkward place in the middle where we need to be quite careful and considerate about what we do next, because there are others that have been in this position not that long ago, that some of the decisions they made in that time are affecting them now,” he said.
Chery only relaunched here as a factory-backed operation in 2023, and last year it was Australia’s 23rd best-selling brand. But it has risen quickly, and to the end of October it’s sitting in 13th position, even finishing in the top 10 in recent months.
So far this year, Chery has delivered 27,578 vehicles, ahead of Volkswagen (24,731) but just below Nissan (31,050). Its sales are up 207.9 per cent on the same period last year.
Omoda Jaecoo, which started local deliveries early this year, is sitting at 2709 sales year-to-date. That still puts it ahead of Cupra (2330) and Jeep (1473).
Ultimately, Mr Harris frames the top‑five objectives as contingent on doing the basics well — sharpening awareness and trust, delivering product cadence (including the ute), and ensuring retail execution keeps pace.
“By ’27 we want to be there… It’s easy to say a lot of the things that we’re saying at the moment; it’s another thing to do them,” he said.
“If we can make good on what we’re saying and do what we say we’re going to do, I think customers will make their own mind up and put us where we deserve to be rather than where we want to be.”
China’s vehicle exports to Australia have grown nearly sevenfold since 2020. The country now provides one in five new cars sold here, up from one in 25 in 2020.
Growth remains driven by mainstream electric and hybrid brands (BYD, MG, GWM, Chery) plus Shanghai-built Teslas.
Chery, MG, BYD and GWM all have ambitions to be in the top five over the next few years, which suggests an exceptional amount of new models at very sharp prices are headed our way.
Below is the progression of Chinese car sales in Australia over the last five years, with 2025 figures representing January to October only.
| Year | Chinese-built car sales | Share of Australian market |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 30,696 | 4.0% |
| 2021 | 76,262 | 8.7% |
| 2022 | 122,845 | 13.1% |
| 2023 | 193,433 | 18.3% |
| 2024 | 216,219 | 19.4% |
| 2025 YTD (Jan–Oct) | 207,742 | 19.9% |
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