Changan Automobile's "Ice and Fire": Sales Reached a Nine-Year High in 2025, but Net Profit Dropped by 44%

Changan Automobile (000625.SZ) achieved its highest sales volume in nine years last year, but its net profit declined significantly.

On the evening of April 10th, Changan Automobile released its annual report for 2025. The company achieved an operating revenue of 163.99 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.67%; the net profit attributable to the parent company was 4.075 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 44.34%; the net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was 2.795 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.03%.

In the past year, Changan Automobile's sales volume reached multiple new highs. Data shows that in 2025, Changan Automobile's annual sales volume reached 2.913 million vehicles, the highest in nearly nine years, a year-on-year increase of 8.5%. It has achieved year-on-year positive growth for six consecutive years and became the fastest automobile enterprise to reach 30 million vehicles in Chinese brands.

Among them, the annual sales volume of Changan Automobile's new energy vehicle segment exceeded 1.11 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 51.1%, reaching a record high; the annual sales volume in the overseas market reached 637,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 18.9%, also reaching a record high.

Significant Reduction in Asset Disposal Gains and Losses and Government Subsidies

In 2025, Changan Automobile's net profit declined significantly, but the net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses maintained growth, indicating that non-recurring gains and losses had a greater impact on profitability.

The annual report shows that the non-recurring gains and losses of Changan Automobile in 2025 were 1.28 billion yuan, a significant decrease compared with 4.734 billion yuan in 2024. Among them, the gains and losses from the disposal of non-current assets were 173 million yuan, compared with 2.55 billion yuan in 2024; government subsidies in 2025 were 559 million yuan, compared with 1.627 billion yuan in the same period of 2024; other gain and loss items in 2025 were 515 million yuan, compared with 1.014 billion yuan in the same period of 2024.

Reporters from Time Weekly found that taking the disposal of non-current assets as an example, the biggest difference lies in the gains from the disposal of fixed assets. The annual report data of Changan Automobile shows that the company's gains from the disposal of fixed assets in 2025 were 103 million yuan, while in the same period of 2024, it was 2.466 billion yuan.

After deducting non-recurring gains and losses, Changan Automobile's net profit in 2025 was 2.795 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.03%, indicating that the company's main business profitability maintained a certain degree of resilience.

In 2025, the sales volume of Changan Automobile's sub-brands increased. Among them, Avita's annual sales volume exceeded 120,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of about 63%. However, due to reasons such as the impact of the Avita brand on the company's net profit not reaching 10%, Changan Automobile did not disclose its revenue and financial data.

In 2025, Deepal achieved an annual sales volume of 325,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 44.4%. It achieved an operating revenue of 50.245 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.97%. The annual net loss was 899 million yuan, a significant reduction compared with the loss of 1.571 billion yuan in 2024. And Changan Qiyuan's annual sales volume exceeded 410,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 42.6%.

Changan Automobile also disclosed that it aims to achieve a total sales volume of 5 million vehicles by 2030. Among them, the sales volume of its own brands is planned to reach 4 million vehicles, the sales volume target of intelligent new vehicles is 3 million vehicles, and the sales volume target in the overseas market is 1.5 million vehicles.

Plans to Invest 14.47 Billion Yuan in 2026

Under the trend that the sales volume growth is higher than the revenue growth, Changan Automobile also exposed the problem of the decline in the average price per vehicle.

Changan Automobile's 2025 annual report shows that calculated by product category, its revenue from the sale of goods was 155.739 billion yuan, and the automobile sales volume was 2.913 million vehicles. If calculated based on this, the average price per vehicle was about 53,400 yuan; while in the same period of 2024, the revenue from the sale of goods was 152.19 billion yuan, and the automobile sales volume was 2.684 million vehicles, and the average price per vehicle was about 56,700 yuan.

This means that the average price per vehicle of Changan Automobile decreased by about 3,300 yuan in 2025.

Looking at different regions, the average price per vehicle of Changan Automobile in the overseas market declined.

In 2025, Changan Automobile's overseas sales volume was 637,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 18.85%, and the overseas revenue was 33.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.4%. The gross profit margin of overseas business decreased from 26.2% in 2024 to 19.49% in 2025, a decrease of about 6.7 percentage points. Calculated, the average price per vehicle in the overseas market was 52,100 yuan.

Changan Automobile pointed out in its annual report that Chongqing Xingzhi Technology Co., Ltd. and Chongqing Changan Automobile International Sales and Service Co., Ltd. are responsible for the company's export business. Affected by the fierce competition in the main markets, the company increased its resource investment, and the overall profit decreased year-on-year.

Regarding its future strategy, Changan Automobile said that it will launch 43 new models in the next three years, form a full-market and full-category layout in 2028, and firmly build global blockbuster products. In the overseas market, it will launch 26 new models in the next three years and plans to cover the world's major markets before 2030.

At the same time, Changan Automobile will accelerate the layout and industrialization of emerging industries such as embodied intelligent humanoid robots and flying cars, and strive to achieve mass production of humanoid robots in 2028 and launch commercial flight cars in 2030.

Changan Automobile will also continue to increase its R & D investment.

In 2025, Changan Automobile's R & D investment was 12.576 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.79%. Changan Automobile said that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, it will maintain an R & D investment of more than 5% every year; in key areas such as AI, software, "three electrics", and styling, it will introduce more than 10,000 core talents and more than 400 top industry experts; in the fields of intelligent driving, AI cockpits, and next-generation batteries, it will release more than 160 technologies.

To achieve the company's strategic goals, Changan Automobile plans to invest 14.47 billion yuan in 2026, including 4.47 billion yuan in fixed asset investment and 10 billion yuan in long-term equity investment (including funds).

The fixed asset investment is mainly concentrated on increasing investment in core R & D capabilities, improving styling, forward-looking, and solid-state battery testing capabilities. The long-term equity investment is mainly concentrated on consolidating intelligent basic capabilities, strengthening the overseas investment platform, expanding the layout of emerging industries, exploring industries such as flying cars and robots, and promoting the company's transformation into a technology company.

This article is from the WeChat official account “Time Weekly” (ID: timeweekly). Author: Zhou Songqing, Han Xun. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.