November 9, 2026
UK car sales rose 5.4% in October to 152,730 registrations, according to SMMT’s monthly registrations release. The trade body counts it as the 11th month in a row above the same month a year earlier. Take out 15 Chinese brands, though, and October was a fall.
Those brands registered 32,972 cars, more than double their total a year earlier. Their gain of 17,921 is more than twice the 7,785 that the whole market added. All the other brands on SMMT’s marque table together registered 7.8% fewer cars than in October 2025.
| UK new car registrations | October 2026 | October 2025 | Change | Jan to Oct 2026 | Jan to Oct 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All brands | 152,730 | 144,945 | +5.4% | 1,892,000 | 1,723,117 | +9.8% |
| 15 Chinese brands | 32,972 | 15,051 | +119.1% | 337,730 | 152,288 | +121.8% |
| Chinese-brand share | 21.6% | 10.4% | +11.2 pts | 17.9% | 8.8% | +9.0 pts |
| All other brands | 119,758 | 129,894 | -7.8% | 1,554,270 | 1,570,829 | -1.1% |
Source: SMMT marque tables for October and the year to date, published November 5, 2026, with 2025 as SMMT’s table now prints it. Chinese brands are the same 15 brands as in September, summed from the marque rows: Aion, BYD, Changan, Chery, Denza, Geely, GWM, Jaecoo, Leapmotor, Lepas, Maxus, MG, Omoda, Skywell and Xpeng, the brands launched by Chinese carmakers plus MG, a British-founded brand that China’s SAIC owns. Volvo, Polestar, Smart and Lotus, which Geely owns or co-owns, count with the other brands; Leapmotor’s European cars are sold through Leapmotor International, 51% owned by Stellantis.
Ten months, the same split
The market has grown by 168,883 cars this year, and the Chinese brands alone added 185,442, which leaves everything else behind 2025.
The biggest losses outside the group belong to Peugeot, Hyundai and Nissan, each more than 12,000 registrations short of last year. Growth outside the group is real but smaller, about 11,000 more cars each for Tesla and Citroen and almost 10,000 for Mini.
Adding Volvo, Polestar, Smart and Lotus to the group, or moving Leapmotor out of it, leaves the answer standing. The remaining brands still fell in October and over the ten months, although without Leapmotor their ten-month fall shrinks to about a quarter of a percent.
MG, Jaecoo and BYD climbed into the top ten
MG registered 7,837 cars in October, fourth in SMMT’s table and just ahead of Kia; a year earlier it ranked 16th. Jaecoo came ninth and BYD tenth, up from 21st and 18th.
Chery’s four British brands, Chery, Jaecoo, Omoda and Lepas, registered 13,589 between them, 98 fewer than the Volkswagen brand. The Jaecoo 7 was Britain’s best-selling car for a second month running, 43 registrations ahead of the Ford Puma, which still leads the year.
Outside the group, Ford lost the most volume. Its 5,851 registrations were 35.2% below October 2025 and dropped it from third in the table to 11th. Skoda and Mercedes-Benz went the other way, each up by more than a tenth, and Volkswagen stayed first. The table counts cars by brand and says nothing about which brand any buyer left.
A fifth of the market without a new plate
In September the same 15 brands took 23.3% of a market swollen by the new number plate, as GCBC reported on October 5. October, the month after the plate change, kept them above a fifth, and lifted their share of the year so far from 17.5% through September to 17.9%.
SMMT tells it as an electric story
SMMT’s own account of October is about powertrains. Plug-in hybrids and battery-electric cars “accounted for all of the growth,” it says, and battery-electric registrations rose 32.7% to a 32.0% share, the highest this year, which SMMT puts down to makers pushing registrations toward their annual mandate target. The release does not say how much of that came from Chinese brands. Three of them made SMMT’s list of October’s ten best-selling battery-electric models, which the Skoda Enyaq led: the Jaecoo 5 in third place, the BYD Seal and the Leapmotor B10.
That push still leaves Britain short of the ZEV mandate. Battery-electric cars hold 26.6% of the market this year against the mandate’s 33%. SMMT’s latest outlook expects the shortfall to more than double by 2028, to 14.5 points, and the trade body wants the targets revised down in the government’s review, the one Nissan’s executives tied their Sunderland hybrid decision to.
SMMT publishes November’s figures on Friday, December 4. The brands outside the Chinese group go into it 16,559 registrations short of last year, and if they are still behind after November, only December remains for them to finish level in a year when the market as a whole grew.
FAQ
What share of UK new car registrations did Chinese brands take in October 2026?
21.6%. Fifteen Chinese brands registered 32,972 of 152,730 new cars, according to SMMT. A year earlier their share was 10.4%.
Did UK new car sales rise in October 2026?
Yes, by 5.4% to 152,730, the 11th month in a row above the same month of the year before. All brands outside the 15 Chinese ones together fell 7.8%.
What was the best-selling car in the UK in October 2026?
The Jaecoo 7, with 3,412 registrations, ahead of the Ford Puma with 3,369, according to SMMT.
