Chinese Motorcycles Market is positive this year. Following the double-digit lost reported last year, in 2025 the market is recovering and Year to Date August sales have been 9 million (+5.8%), better than expected.
Economic Outlook
Higher-than-expected U.S. tariffs are likely to weigh on China’s economic growth. We have lowered our GDP growth forecast from 4.5% to just above 4%. Growth headwinds would be felt through reduced exports to the U.S. and less room for diversion of exports to other countries, a shock to confidence weighing on investment, and weaker global demand.
Supply-centric policy support has reinforced a negative feedback loop between weak demand and low prices. Both the magnitude and composition (that is, greater support to consumers) of policy stimulus are critical to breaking the cycle.
Motorcycle Market Data and Trend
The increased Chinese pro capita income signed the decline of domestic 2-wheeler market, with cars becoming the favourite individual mobility device and metropolitan areas banning the 2W use in the centers, aiming to reduce accidents and expand public transportation usage.
Meanwhile, the new middle class is looking at 2W as leisure product and while the total domestic market is declining, the «premium» (over 250cc) segment is fast growing thanks to import and new premium domestic OEMs, like Voge, CF Moto, Kove, Benelli, QJ Motor and many others.
The domestic electric market is already the biggest in the world (near 80% of the total) but is now changing towards technologic solutions, high specs and higher power model, thanks to new battery generation.
While the market is growing in terms of value, considering the registrations figures, it is sharply declining, with less than 12.3 million sales (registrations) in 2024, a 16.1% or over 2 million decline from the previous year.
The data includes motorcycles, scooter, underbone and registered moped.
However, in 2025 the market is recovering and Year to Date August sales have been 9 million (+5.8%), better than expected.
The trend is not a surprise as total, while the fact that the electric segment is sharply declining can be considered sensational. However, the decline is one of the effects of the transformation inside the industry, with the OEM involved in developing the new generation EVs, more competitive in terms of specification, options and power and less focused on low price.
Following the previous two years double-digit decline, the electric vehicles segment in 2025 is recovering and after the first 8 months sales increased 13.0%, thanks to the robust growth of L3 segment (+39.1%) while the L1 segment, still represent near 80% of the EVs market, increased a more modest 8.2%.