Over-expansion and weak demand have reportedly forced dealers to shut or rebrand many outlets

Chinese car brands have sharply reduced their showroom network in Russia after several years of rapid expansion, with hundreds of outlets closed or rebranded amid low sales and higher costs, Kommersant has reported.

In 2025, 643 showrooms selling Chinese passenger cars and light commercial vehicles were shut in Russia, according to estimates by Gazprombank Autoleasing and industry outlet AvtoBusinessReview cited by the newspaper on Wednesday. The figure is 1.4 times higher than in 2024. Over the same period, 459 new dealerships were opened - three times fewer than a year earlier.

As a result, the total number of Chinese-brand sales points in Russia fell by 7% last year to about 2,600, and their share of all car showrooms slipped from 67% to 64%, Kommersant wrote.

Gazprombank Autoleasing executive Aleksandr Kornev told the paper that roughly one in four outlets selling Chinese cars in 2025 was either closed or converted to another brand, with more than 100 retailers choosing to work instead with new Russian brands using locally assembled Chinese models.

The Russian Auto Dealers Association described the wave of closures as a correction after "too fast" growth in previous years, when many Chinese brands "entered the market actively, opening a large number of showrooms, sometimes without understanding real demand and the economics of the dealer business."

Chinese and domestic Russian brands have dominated sales in recent years, filling the gap left by Western and Japanese automakers that exited the market following sanctions and geopolitical tensions.

Overall, the number of showrooms for all car brands in Russia fell by 85 in 2025 to around 4,070.

Kornev said low sales and high borrowing, rental, logistics, and staffing costs had prevented dealers from meeting their initial plans and held back network expansion. Other industry figures said that only three Chinese brands operating as monobrand dealerships - Haval City, Chery, and Geely - were selling enough cars per outlet to stay comfortably above break even.

Experts quoted by Kommersant expect the pace of closures to slow, but say further rebranding of Chinese showrooms under new Russian names is likely to continue.

(RT.com)