Automotive industry: a closer look at China

Following on from our Global Automotive report, we’ve taken an indepth look at the online market in China.

Focusing on the top performing global brands, we’ve collected a range of data from Baidu to reveal who’s leading in organic search.

Searches for Tesla are growing throughout China

Data taken from Pi Market Intelligence

Looking at the top 13 cities in China (based on their tiered city system), we can see that Tesla is the most searched brand. However, when we include all cities Toyota emerges as the most searched.

This suggests the advent of electric vehicles in major Chinese cities.

Unlike the rest of the global automotive economy, China’s favoured brands/vehicles are not lead by the whims of the people but controlled by the government. Pollution is a huge issue in China so its within the government's interest to diminish the use of fuel driven cars. To this end, in 2017 Beijing joined some European countries in planning a move away from diesel and petrol fueled cars in future years.

There are already restrictions on when car users can drive their vehicles on any given day in some cities in China and many non-commercial vehicles (such as buses) are electric already.

It’s not only the hazardous pollution levels pushing electric vehicles into the norm, but a way to bolster its auto industries ahead of global competitors as China produces an impressive 43% of the world's EV's (Electric Vehicles).

Industry influence across the world

In the last year, sales of electric cars in China surpassed sales in the US by four times.

If we look at three major cities in tier one in closer detail, again we can see how Tesla’s influence is growing.

Data taken from Pi Market Intelligence

In Beijing, Tesla was searched 134,000 times and Toyota was searched 75,000 times.

As China is the largest manufacturer in the automotive industry, and also sees the most Organic Value in search globally, they have a large amount of influence over the industry.

This indicates a global movement towards electrically powered vehicles.

Download the Global Automotive report here.