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Chinese car brand GAC previously claimed it could be a Top 10 selling brand in five years. Now it reckons it can hit its goal even sooner.
GAC thinks it can crack the list of the Top 10 best-selling car brands in Australia in as little as three years, planning a rapid expansion even quicker than it previously targeted.
The Chinese car brand, like many newcomers, is eyeing a top-10 place in the new-car sales charts, and has previously declared it wants to achieve its goal within five years.
GAC, which stands for Guangzhou Automobile Group, also wants to expand its dealership reach from 30 to 100 during the same period.
At the launch of its new Aion UT electric hatchback this week, though, local boss Kevin Shu said he thinks GAC can do it sooner.
“Within five years, with 10 models, with more than 100 [dealer] network together, we can enter the top 10… maybe one year or two years earlier to achieve this target,” said the Chief Executive Officer.
“So GAC in the Australian market is not only [here] for one year, one model. We focus on long-term conquering this market.”
If it does achieve its goal, GAC would be far from the first Chinese car maker to enter the Top 10.
BYD did so in 2025, three years after arriving in 2022, and MG did so in five years, but in a less competitive market than exists today.
Other Chinese car makers on the list regularly include GWM and Chery.
In its home market, GAC is in the Top 10 best-selling brands and sells more than 28 million cars worldwide.
On how it intends to beat out legacy brands for a top spot, GAC executives said it would do so by being known for quality, maintaining a stable parts supply through its large Melbourne warehouse, and offering vehicles across different segments.
“We launched in Australia for Australia. We plan to integrate into Australia, survive… and contribute to the nation along with our partners, customers and dealership together,” said Shu.
“Last year, we launched in this market three models: M8, Aion V and Emzoom. These models are important for our spread in this market. We want to go along with our customers forever.
“Emzoom is for the young generation graduating from university in two or three years. Maybe after three to five years, they will have a family, one kid and upgrade from Emzoom to Aion V.
“And then, five years later, they have two kids [and move] from Aion V to M8. So, this is our logic to launch our models in this market.”
Andrew Ratajczak, Director of Aftersales for GAC in Australia, said the supply of parts would not be an issue.
“We have been able to get the parts supply,” he told media. “We have a very solid strategy and idea of what we want for our customers for the aftersales business.”
“We'd like to be able to say we can cover 96 per cent of the parts for each model we have. Obviously, it's going to take time to do that, right? We’ve probably got about 12-24 months to get to where we need to be.”
“We are looking to stretch outside of the metro. It's just a matter of getting that balance and sign off on those potential partners to stretch out there. They need time to prepare.
“Moving into the next year, we'll be looking at some other models that are going to be more suitable for that rural demographic.”
A born-and-bred newshound, Kathryn has worked her way up through the ranks reporting for, and later editing, two renowned UK regional newspapers and websites, before moving on to join the digital newsdesk of one of the world’s most popular newspapers – The Sun. More recently, she’s done a short stint in PR in the not-for-profit sector, and led the news team at Wheels Media.
