Chery Reaches the 20 Million Unit Milestone: Is Yin Tongyue Deciding to Stop the Rat Race?

Chery has reached a critical juncture.

On July 25, Chery Group’s cumulative global sales surpassed 20 million units.

At this milestone, Yin Tongyue, Chairman of CHERY AUTO, stated, “After reaching 20 million units, we will no longer participate in the internal rat race. We will no longer pursue sales volume alone; instead, we will strive for brand elevation, create greater value, achieve more technological breakthroughs, and significantly enhance customer satisfaction.”

The Fengyun A9, launched on the same day as the representative model marking Chery’s cumulative global sales breakthrough of 20 million units, was officially delivered to customers.

For a Chinese automaker established nearly 30 years ago, the 20 million unit mark is not just a numerical milestone in production and sales scale. It signifies that Chery, which grew through early reliance on independent R&D, low-cost manufacturing, and export breakthroughs, has entered a stage where it must redefine its competitive approach.

In recent years, the Chinese automotive market has entered an accelerated phase of new energy transition and price competition. Chery has maintained growth during this round of competition, particularly with outstanding performance in overseas markets. However, pressure on domestic operations, along with insufficient brand structure and intelligent capabilities, remain questions Chery must answer after crossing the 20 million unit threshold.

Therefore, the real question for Chery post-20 million units is not whether to continue pursuing sales volume, but how to increase per-unit value, brand influence, and user recognition while maintaining its scale advantage.

01 The Foundation of 20 Million Units

In the business support system behind Chery’s achievement of 20 million units in sales, outward-oriented characteristics occupy a significant position.

According to publicly disclosed historical data, cumulative export sales account for nearly 7 million units out of the total 20 million, representing more than one-third of the total. This proportion indicates that overseas markets have been a crucial support for Chery’s long-term scale expansion.

As the domestic auto market enters a phase of stock game competition, overseas business has become a key engine driving Chery’s overall sales growth.

At this juncture, Chery chose the Fengyun A9 as the symbolic 20 millionth vehicle for delivery.

Positioned as a long-range pure electric sedan, the car has an official guide price ranging from 109,900 yuan to 129,900 yuan. In terms of product line and brand planning, the choice of the “Fengyun” series has clear business implications.

The Fengyun series was once the mainstay sedan and export model during the early days of the Chery brand. Currently, it has been restructured into an independent sequence carrying the new energy transition.

The delivery of the Fengyun A9 is not only an attempt by Chery to complete its new energy sedan product line but also serves the task of optimizing its sales structure.

However, combining Chery’s recent operational data, its current scale growth still heavily relies on the traditional fuel vehicle base and overseas increments.

In the first half of 2026, Chery Group’s cumulative sales reached 1.3575 million units, a year-on-year increase of 7.7%. Within this overall figure, trends in domestic and overseas markets showed significant divergence.

In the first half of the year, Chery’s cumulative exports reached 943,800 units, a year-on-year increase of 71.5%. Exports now account for nearly 70% of total sales, with Chery continuously breaking records for monthly exports by Chinese automakers.

These data indicate that rapid expansion in overseas markets is a significant factor supporting Chery Group’s overall sales growth. Of the 1.3575 million units sold in the half-year period, new energy vehicle sales amounted to 475,200 units, accounting for approximately 35%. Fuel vehicles remain an important support for Chery’s current sales volume and profits.

In contrast to the growth in overseas markets, Chery is facing operational pressure in the domestic terminal circulation channel.

In public remarks, Yin Tongyue disclosed the contraction status of domestic business. He stated that the industry is very difficult this year, and Chery actively “squeezed out the moisture” in the first half, reducing domestic wholesale deliveries by 150,000 units. The core purpose was to alleviate inventory pressure on dealers.

In the conventional context of the automotive distribution industry, when an OEM actively reduces wholesale volumes to relieve financial pressure on dealers, it usually indicates pressure on terminal sell-through or that dealers face the risk of price inversion.

The shrinkage of the domestic fuel vehicle base, coupled with price competition in various segments, has put pressure on Chery’s traditional domestic channels. The reduction of 150,000 units at the wholesale end could be a defensive move to concede margins to channels and prevent dealer network exits, or an operational adjustment to avoid further pressure on the terminal price system.

Structurally, Chery’s 20 million unit milestone is primarily a scale victory supported jointly by fuel vehicles and overseas markets.

This is also a characteristic of the industry as a whole. Zhao Shaobo, an automotive industry analyst at CITIC Securities, stated in a research report that the domestic passenger car market faced overall pressure in the first half of 2026, with exports becoming the core incremental driver. Overseas sales of large independent automakers such as Chery, BYD, and Geely all increased by more than 70% year-on-year.

However, from the perspective of long-term operational safety, excessive reliance on exports still faces risks from tariff barriers and geopolitical tensions.

Stabilizing domestic terminals, rebuilding confidence in dealer channels, and ramping up volume for flagship new energy products are several fundamental issues Chery must resolve after crossing the 20 million unit mark.

02 Can Chery Really Stop the Rat Race?

Prior to Yin Tongyue’s recent statement about “no longer participating in the internal rat race,” the public recalls his previous multiple expressions of being “uncompromising” in new energy and intelligence.

The shift from “uncompromising” to “no longer participating in the rat race” reflects a change in Chery’s commercial focus.

The previously mentioned “uncompromising” stance was built upon advantages in capital and production capacity scale, relying on aggressive pricing and intensive product launches to enter the new energy market and gain share.

Now, emphasizing “no longer participating in the rat race” and focusing on value creation also reflects management’s caution regarding low gross margins and the risk of losing channel control after a prolonged period of “trading price for volume.”

However, considering the fundamentals of the current Chinese automotive industry, whether Chery can truly detach from the “rat race” still needs to be tested in terminal competition and pricing mechanisms.

From the most direct business dimension of product pricing, the difficulty of executing a refusal to engage in the rat race is obvious.

Taking the newly launched Fengyun A9 as an example, although group executives expressed the expectation of no longer competing on price and sales volume, the model’s pricing of 109,900 yuan to 129,900 yuan, along with its configuration, is still interpreted by the market as “high specs at a low price.”

This pricing strategy also illustrates that competition in the domestic 100,000 to 150,000 yuan pure electric sedan market is fierce, and “not racing” is difficult to simply execute at the product level.

Setting aside short-term pricing compromises, from the perspective of mid-to-long-term corporate profitability structure and strategic survival, “brand elevation” has become a question Chery must answer.

Chery’s complex multi-brand matrix requires clearer price gradients to reduce internal friction.

Currently, Chery Group spans five brand sequences: Chery, Jetour, Exeed, Luxeed, and iCar. Due to historical planning and multi-front operations, these sub-brands have overlapping products and user bases in the 100,000 to 200,000 yuan price range.

If Exeed, tasked with the mission of premiumization, and Luxeed, developed in cooperation with Huawei, cannot establish a foothold and build premium recognition in the market above 200,000 yuan, Chery’s capacity planning could evolve into mutual competition among sub-brands in the lower-tier markets.

Zhao Shaobo stated in his report that looking ahead to the second half of 2026 and 2027, the industry’s main theme will shift towards realizing export potential and profit recovery. Leading automakers are expected to achieve volume and profit growth through parallel development of multiple powertrain types, overseas factory construction, and external cooperation. Domestic competition will remain intense, and premiumization remains worthy of attention.

Therefore, achieving brand elevation is an important path for Chery to widen the price gap between product sequences, improve the efficiency of R&D resource utilization, and reduce internal competition.

R&D investment in the next generation of smart electric vehicles requires a higher gross margin business structure for support. At the press conference marking the crossing of 20 million units, Chery announced its future forward-looking technology layout, involving battery cells and chips, Robotaxis and robotics, green energy and computing power, and proposed conducting research on controlled nuclear fusion.

In addition, Chery signed a cooperation agreement with Yinwang, pointing towards technological breakthroughs and mass production implementation of L3 and L4 autonomous driving during the “15th Five-Year Plan” period.

An engineer from an automaker pointed out to Wall Street News that such long-cycle, high-risk, and high-intensity capital investments cannot be sustained by high-volume models with meager profits. If Chery fails to achieve brand elevation and obtain corresponding per-unit premium capability, its technological transformation blueprint will face greater financial pressure.

The historical cumulative sales of 20 million units have provided Chery with supply chain bargaining power, room for trial and error, and scale effects. However, these advantages primarily address the enterprise’s survival baseline and market entry ticket.

Yin Tongyue’s statement of “no longer participating in the rat race, no longer pursuing sales volume alone” is a signal that Chery, having realized that the old growth model has hit a bottleneck, is attempting to shift from scale-driven to profit and value-driven growth.

Whether Chery can achieve brand elevation through specific models and gain user recognition puts the pressure squarely on Chery.