May 28, Shanghai North Bund World Reception Hall, SAIC Motor handed over the key to the 100 millionth new vehicle to the user. This is China's largest automotive group, becoming the first enterprise in the history of China's automotive industry to accumulate production and sales exceeding 100 million units.
From the first Phoenix sedan being hand-beaten into shape in a lane factory in 1958, to a new vehicle rolling off the production line on average every ten-plus seconds today, SAIC spent 68 years completing this long road from zero to 100 million.
Industrial changes behind a number
100 million vehicles, accounting for about 22% of the cumulative production since the establishment of China's automotive industry (about 450 million units). This means that for every four and a half cars driven on Chinese roads, one bears SAIC's mark.
The growth trajectory of this enterprise highly overlaps with several key leaps in China's automotive industry: In the 1980s, SAIC took the lead in a joint venture with Volkswagen, establishing a modern production system in China's nearly blank sedan industry; In the 1990s, SAIC-GM was established, simultaneously building the localized R&D center PanAsia, changing the joint venture enterprises' old playbook of "producing only without R&D"; After the 2000s, independent brands Roewe and Maxus were launched successively, beginning to catch up on this mandatory course of independent R&D.
In 2014, SAIC took the lead in proposing a comprehensive transition to new energy, at that time China's new energy vehicle annual sales were only 75,000 units. Twelve years later, new energy has become the core track of this old car enterprise.
How were 100 million vehicles achieved?
Relying solely on car sales cannot reach 100 million units. SAIC's footprint is very broad -- passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, parts, finance, mobility, basically doing all the business possible on the automotive supply chain. 15 brands under its umbrella, from Wuling Hongguang to IM Motors, from MG to Audi, covering the price range from 30,000 to over a million.
More worth mentioning is the overseas market. When exporting passenger vehicles for the first time in 2001, SAIC might not have thought that more than twenty years later, this enterprise would become the vanguard of Chinese cars going global. Nowadays, SAIC products are sold in over 170 countries and regions, with cumulative overseas deliveries exceeding 7 million units, having built manufacturing bases in Thailand, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, and also formed its own car transport fleet.
In 2025, SAIC released the overseas "Glocal Strategy" -- a combination tactic of Global plus Local. Semi-solid-state batteries, intelligent driving systems, overseas Internet of Vehicles, these technologies are gradually being installed in overseas new vehicles.
Not the end point, but another starting point
This number of 100 million vehicles, placed in the sequence of global automotive giants, is not rare. Toyota and Volkswagen's cumulative production has long exceeded 200 million or even 300 million units. For China's automotive industry, its significance lies more in a signal: this market has already cultivated enterprises capable of large-scale, multi-brand, whole-industry-chain operation.
Internally, SAIC calls this 100 million units the "starting line of a second entrepreneurship". This sounds like a slogan, but looking at actual actions, the direction is clear -- shifting from selling scale to competing on technology, from selling products to providing user services.
That Phoenix sedan in 1958 was manually hammered for three months. Nowadays, SAIC's daily off-line volume exceeds 3,000 units. But as SAIC insiders put it, technology and output change, whether the phrase "Understand cars, understand you better" can be achieved is the upcoming exam question.
China's automotive industry's first 100 million vehicle club member has officially joined the list. When will the next 100 million come? How will it come? That will be another story.
