Seeking Innovation and Progress, SAIC Ascends

October 1, SAIC announced September sales: 406,000 units in a single month, 3.147 million units cumulative for the first three quarters, continuing to rank first in the Chinese automotive industry. This is already SAIC's third "first" of the year — in May, it became the first domestic automobile group to break through 100 million cumulative production and sales, winning the first-half sales championship with 2.045 million units in the first half of the year, and continued to lead in the first three quarters.

The timing of these results is crucial. Since 2024, China's automotive industry has entered a new cycle of adjustment: volume growth is shifting from fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles, and the focus of competition has shifted from the quantity of product launches to technology, efficiency, and business capabilities. Being able to continue leading within this cycle relies on three levels being aligned simultaneously, supporting each other, where one cannot be missing.

Innovation: Independent Brands Become the Core Engine

From January to September, SAIC's independent brands sold 2.303 million units cumulatively, a year-on-year increase of 12.6%, accounting for 73.2% of the group's total sales. According to SAIC's own statement, independent brands have become the "core engine" driving group growth.

Breaking it down by segment: SAIC Passenger Vehicles 868,000 units, up 45.6% year-on-year, SAIC Maxus 215,000 units, up 34%, SAIC-GM-Wuling 1.06 million units — there are both high-growth segments and a million-unit scale base.

Independent brands sold 304,000 units in September, achieving year-on-year growth for nine consecutive months within the year, with stable market demand release. Independent brands have become the main engine for group growth, and the first step of SAIC's "seeking innovation" is landing right here.

Advancement: Integrating High-Level Intelligence into More Price Ranges

SAIC New Energy Vehicles sold 1.388 million units cumulatively from January to September, a year-on-year increase of 28.2%, far exceeding the industry average growth rate; among them, SAIC Passenger Vehicles 415,000 units, up 170.1% year-on-year, IM Motors 60,000 units, up 40.1%.

Supporting these growth rates is a batch of high-end products launched by SAIC — technologies that previously belonged only to high-end car configurations are now brought before a wider mainstream consumer group.

Roewe Jia Yue 07 pre-sale price 137,800 - 152,800 yuan, bringing the Doubao Cockpit Assistant and Momenta high-level intelligent driving into the 150,000 yuan family SUV class, pre-sale orders broke 20,000 units in 48 hours; MG07 brought the 800V platform, 5C fast charging, and 845km range into the 150,000 yuan coupe class, with September single-month deliveries exceeding 14,000 units; The all-new generation IM LS6 comes standard with a fully-steered chameleon chassis, with new orders exceeding 11,000 units within 57 minutes of launch.

These numbers represent different stages of the new product cycle: pre-sale orders reflect purchasing intent, launch orders reflect feedback during the release period, and delivery volume is the actual realization. The MG4 family delivered over 16,000 units in September, with monthly sales breaking 10,000 for several consecutive months, verifying the continuity of deliveries.

The confidence of "high specifications at not high prices" comes from the depth of the supply chain. SAIC has an internal group parts system — Huayu makes the chassis, Yanfeng makes interior and exterior trim, Qingtao makes solid-state batteries, core modules are shared across vehicle models, predicting demand at a million-unit scale and stocking materials in advance, using scale to spread costs.

Supporting this is decades of continuous R&D investment and tens of thousands of valid patents. These investments are starting to pay off — second-generation semi-solid state batteries are in mass production delivery on the MG4, and self-developed steer-by-wire technology is in mass production installation on the IM LS9 and LS8.

Speed Up: Joint Venture New Energy Product Capabilities Fully Released

From January to September, SAIC-GM sold 94,000 new energy vehicles, up 67.4% year-on-year; SAIC-Volkswagen sold 56,000 new energy vehicles, up 25.9% year-on-year. The two sets of data indicate that the electrification pace of the joint venture segment has accelerated significantly.

The source of speed is products. SAIC Volkswagen ID.ERA 5S launched in August, rights price 89,900 - 119,900 yuan, comprehensive range broke 2000km, it is the first plug-in hybrid sedan globally equipped with city NOA capability for the Volkswagen brand; The refreshed Buick Zhijing E7 launched the same month, limited-time trade-in price starting from 147,900 yuan; Audi E7X became the first luxury brand pure electric model to sell over 10,000 units within 100 days.

The configuration lists and price lists of these cars are all defined according to the judgment standards of Chinese new energy users. The channels, after-sales, and brand awareness accumulated by joint ventures are still exerting value, while the arrival of new products gives these accumulations new starting points. Cooperation models are also being adjusted synchronously: SAIC-GM and SAIC-Volkswagen have completed contract renewals, and SAIC Audi has launched new strategic cooperation.

The growth momentum of joint venture new energy vehicles continued from the first half of the year to the first three quarters, and accelerated further.

Glocal 3.0 Strategy: Globalization Layout Deepened

From January to September, SAIC overseas markets sold 1.166 million units cumulatively, up 52.4% year-on-year, accounting for 37% of the group's total sales. Overseas markets have become an important component of SAIC's scale. What supports overseas growth is the competitiveness of the products themselves.

In July, MG held a technical conference in London, UK, showcasing three major technologies: hybrid, semi-solid state batteries, and intelligent driving; MG became the first automobile brand globally to achieve mass production of semi-solid state batteries. In August, SAIC BEV overseas sales exceeded 10,000 units, up 93.3%, PHEV exceeded 5,000 units, up 56.4%, HEV 14,000 units, up 8.5%.

The products also received certification from local professional media: MG4 EV Urban won the UK "What Car" Annual Best Pure Electric Small Car, MG HS PHEV won "Auto Express" and "What Car" Annual Best Plug-in Hybrid and Best Hybrid, MG ZS Hybrid+ won Australian and Spanish media Car of the Year awards.

Supporting these achievements is also: SAIC has built China's first, globally leading complete vehicle logistics self-owned fleet, activated the Frankfurt European Engineering Center, established localized production in Thailand, and set up direct sales companies in Belgium and Luxembourg. These layouts determine the thickness of overseas business for the next three to five years.

Besides sales, data provided in the semi-annual report: SAIC's total operating revenue in the first half of 2026 was 298.65 billion yuan, core net profit attributable to parents 7.87 billion yuan, up 72% year-on-year, gross margin 12.6%, up 3 percentage points, net operating cash flow 54.3 billion yuan, up 158%. The synchronous improvement in operating quality makes this round of growth more substantial.

Upward: Industry Investment Feeds Back into Main Business, Harvest Period Has Arrived

There is another matter in the first three quarters that is easily overlooked: SAIC's technology investments planned over many years are now entering its own product lines one by one.

The most direct is Momenta. This intelligent driving solution provider has completed Hong Kong stock listing, and the business linkage with SAIC is also landing continuously: IM L6, LS6全系 come equipped with Momenta city NOA solution, relevant models go overseas to Europe synchronously.

Such synergy is not an isolated example: SAIC industry investments have cumulatively harvested dozens of listed enterprises, among which the chips, storage, and other core components of several portfolio companies have entered the SAIC vehicle supply chain.

Aiming inward, SAIC has always regarded products as a sharp weapon for competition, and clarified that "independent brands are the first strategy", integrating SAIC Passenger Vehicles, SAIC International, R&D Center, Ling Shu Technology, etc. into a large passenger vehicle segment, ensuring product definition, R&D, production, and marketing are on the same chain.

The effectiveness of organizational synergy is becoming apparent: the response speed from product definition to launch has significantly accelerated, allowing SAIC to launch more competitive products faster.

Where There Is Persistence, There Is a Response

Single-month figures, cumulative growth rates, independent brand share, overseas market share, any one of these taken separately cannot interpret the performance SAIC has demonstrated in this past year.

A volume of millions of units, multi-brand layout, deep whole industry chain, determines that its adjustment must be overall — after the industry direction switch, growth structure, product system, and organizational methods must be recalibrated according to the same logic.

Solve the source of growth first, then solve the quality of growth, and finally solve the system efficiency — in the past year and a half, SAIC has done these three things in order: technically entering more price ranges, operationally making independent, new energy, and overseas into new growth curves, organizationally using brand integration and the large passenger vehicle segment to re-equip internal resources. These three things landing simultaneously created the performance in the first three quarters.

There are some layouts that will not be written into the sales table. At the 48th WorldSkills Competition at the end of September, SAIC employee Jiao Jiao won gold in the body repair project, and the Chinese delegation successfully defended its title. SAIC has built four major training bases, with a skilled talent team exceeding 80,000 people — manufacturing quality, delivery consistency, and after-sales response ultimately rely on this team to support.

China's automotive market is in the midst of an intelligent transformation. After the dividend of incremental growth fades, the industry is competing not just on speed — the endurance of continuous investment, the efficiency of turning technology into products, the ability to operate in multiple markets simultaneously, lacking any one of them means you won't go far.

SAIC has made up for these all at once in this round. 70 years of manufacturing accumulation, a fully independent parts system, global logistics capabilities, plus continuous R&D investment and organizational restructuring over the past decade — the leading position of 3.147 million units in the first three quarters is the manifestation of this system at the result end.

In the fourth quarter, this batch of new cars will迎来 the complete delivery season. This transformation of China's automotive market will not end soon, the ones that can cross the cycle must be companies that make up for the system and solidify it.

SAIC has already stood firm on this road.