- Skoda’s China sales peaked at 341,000 units back in 2018.
- The brand sold just 15,000 vehicles in the country last year.
- Future growth will focus on India and Southeast Asian markets.
The Chinese car market has changed dramatically since the Covid-19 pandemic, driven largely by a surge in homegrown brands and a decisive shift in buyer preferences toward EVs and hybrids. Few stories illustrate the country’s changing automotive appetite more clearly than Skoda’s, which VW has announced will completely withdraw from China by the middle of this year.
Not too long ago, China was the single largest market for Skoda vehicles worldwide. In fact, roughly one in every four vehicles produced by Skoda was sold in the country. Sales skyrocketed in the years before the pandemic, hitting 325,000 units in 2017 and surging further to 341,000 vehicles in 2018.
Read: VW Shuttered Its First Major Plant In China After 17 Years
Skoda was so confident of its positioning in China that it planned to double deliveries to 600,000 vehicles per year by 2020. Things have changed dramatically since then. In 2020, Skoda’s sales plummeted from 282,000 in 2019 to just 173,000, largely due to the pandemic and extended lockdowns across China.
A Downward Spiral
Unfortunately for Skoda, it never recovered. Sales declined to 71,200 in 2021, dropped to 44,600 in 2022, fell to roughly 22,800 in 2023, and continued sliding in 2024 with just 17,500 units recorded. Last year, the brand sold just 15,000 cars in China.
Citing this sustained decline, VW says it will completely abandon the Chinese market in the coming months, though it insists after-sales services for existing customers will continue. The retreat comes despite Skoda having launched the Elroq electric SUV and having worked on the upcoming Epiq and Peaq models, both of which have the potential to rival some of China’s homegrown EVs. Evidently, the VW Group no longer considers it worth competing with Chinese brands on their home turf.
According to Skoda, its abandonment of the Chinese market will allow it to shift focus to India and Southeast Asia where sales are proving strong. Last year, Skoda sold 70,600 vehicles in India, a 96.1 percent increase from the 36,000 units it shifted in 2024.
