The main association of automobile sellers and repairers in our country, Ganvam, welcomes the massive establishment of Chinese brands in Spain because it constitutes a democratizing vector of mobility for ordinary citizens. According to its president, Jaime Barea, these manufacturers “have brought the new vehicle closer to average incomes” by making it “more accessible and more affordable, as mobility should be, within the reach of all incomes”.
During the traditional Christmas meeting with the media, Barea highlighted as the main reasons for the increase that the market experienced during the year 2025, and that expected for next year, the good performance of each chain, regional plans such as Restart Auto+ and the arrival of Chinese companies. Thanks to their more moderate prices, they achieved a market share of 9.6% in a short time, he said.
This figure is around double the average for the rest of Europe. In our country, seven out of 10 registrations are registered via the private channel – compared to 46.3% of the average – and Chinese manufacturers were right to focus on this market by offering vehicles equipped with an advanced technological component at very competitive prices and by making it possible, according to Ganvam, to make more accessible models previously reserved for certain consumer profiles.
Barea considers that “the entry of these new brands has facilitated a new generation approach to mobility towards average incomes, preventing the vehicle from becoming a luxury item.”
With this impulse, the national market is expected to close the year with 1.14 million units sold, according to employer calculations, and in 2026 it will experience growth of 5% in the passenger car sector, which will bring total deliveries to 1.2 million vehicles. This record is close to that of the pre-pandemic phase and coincides, according to Barea, with the cruising speed that corresponds to a country with the population and resources of ours.
The general director of Ganvam, Fernando Miguélez, clarified during the meeting that the aid from the Moves III Plan made it possible to accelerate electrification in 2025, a year which will end with a quota of electric and plug-in hybrid passenger cars close to 20%. Next year, this proportion will reach 30% thanks to several factors.
Among them, he mentioned the announcement of new measures to stimulate demand, such as the increase in the budget aimed at covering the Moves III waiting list and the new Auto+ plan, which will replace it in 2026.
In the year that is ending, the impact of the Dana of October 2024 has been decisive for the growth of the market. The floods required the replacement of a large number of damaged vehicles, generating additional demand for around 27,500 units of new passenger cars. Without this temporary effect, the growth in registrations would have been around 10.4% at the end of 2025, the association calculates.
This dana effect This was also seen in the second-hand market, where the Restart Auto+ plan itself, which also included aid for used vehicles less than three years old, generated an additional demand for 30,000 units of used passenger cars. Thus, forecasts stand at 2.23 million units of used passenger cars in 2025, more than 6% above pre-pandemic levels.
A change of model
Ganvam celebrates the recent approval of the Sustainable Mobility Law, which envisages – within three months of its approval – a renewal plan with possible support for Euro 6d vehicles, but there is an urgent need to move from announcements to the implementation of effective measures. “The sector does not live only on announcements. To guarantee the credibility of the programs and dispel uncertainties, it is important to land and activate the measures and, above all, to have and articulate the economic resources to be able to make them a reality, especially now that the market is regaining its rhythm”, said Jaime Barea.
For the rest, the employers’ association of sellers and repairers warns against a drift in the Spanish market in which car ownership is losing ground in favor of new forms of access and financing. Proof of this is that individual purchases have decreased by almost nine percentage points over the last decade and currently represent 46.8% of registrations, compared to 55.6% in 2015.
In this context of transformation, where the weight of formulas such as rental has increased by 10 points since 2015, Ganvam forecasts an estimated growth of 12.5% in 2025, which equates to approximately 1,145,000 units.
The entity explains that this year the individual channel showed atypical behavior in the general trend, growing slightly compared to 2024 due to current factors such as the dana effect and the price effect generated by Chinese brands, which today have little penetration in the fleet market.
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