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Plunging market share for traditional giants such as Ford, Vauxhall and even top selling Volkswagen reflects an Amazon-style approach to choosing cars by British motorists, according to an analysis just released by Vehicle Data Global (VDG).*
“The decline for some of Britain’s household car brands was not driven by motorists falling out of love with those badges. Instead, it reflects broader changes in the way people buy products in general, beginning online with feature comparisons before visiting stores or dealer showrooms,” said Ben Hermer, Operations Director of VDG. Consumers now choose cars in a similar way to buying products on Amazon. And the switch to electric vehicles has added impetus to the changes by presenting cars increasingly like feature-rich consumer goods, enabling relatively unknown names to immediately compete for attention on the basis of value. Just as unknown Chinese consumer brands took off on Amazon, British motorists have catapulted names like Omoda and Jaecoo from zero to 100,000 sales in less than two years. In contrast, even 2025 market winner Volkswagen registered almost 20% fewer cars than in 2015 and names like Fiat and Citroen saw falls of 85% and 75% respectively,”said Hermer.
VDG Observations and Opinions
- Overall, the five leading marques in 2015 collectively accounted for 43.9% of registrations, but only 32.0% in 2025. In contrast, over just five years, new Chinese entrants grew tenfold.
- VDG says that onetime limited choice between familiar brands has been transformed into a marketplace overflowing with unfamiliar but highly-specified and affordable Chinese products. This closely mirrors the way Amazon changed the way consumers shop. The onetime dominant brands and their dealerships have therefore come under similar pressures as the High Street, in competition with the internet.
- While it is usually the growth in online car purchasing that leads to comparisons with Amazon, VDG argues that the greater impact of Amazon’s influence on the automotive market has been increased competition through price, specification, availability and digital appeal. Ben Hermer, Operations Director of VDG, said “Car buyers are increasingly applying their online shopping habits, in buying electronics and household products from unfamiliar online brands on Amazon, to their car buying process.”
- VDG also says that the electrification of the UK market squeezed the former car brand giants by introducing cars that can be more easily reduced to comparable attributes, in the same way as other consumer products. Ben Hermer said “Electric cars lend themselves particularly well to feature comparisons in the same way that household and other consumer products are assessed on Amazon, with buyers keen to compare range, charging speed, battery capacity and features like cabin screen quality and driver-assistance equipment alongside the traditional warranty length and finance terms. This has favored Chinese manufacturers who came from an existing culture of providing long lists of standard features and benefits as basic, compared with the established manufacturers who tended to bundle many of their most advanced features into paid-for option packs.”
- Facing several years of increased living costs, car buyers now increasingly favor Chinese manufacturers who tend to provide long equipment lists and exciting technological features as standard. “Cars are increasingly becoming bundles of searchable features, which for some buyers might be more important than longstanding engineering pedigree, handling character and brand history. So the Amazon-style research process has geared many consumers to instantly eye-catching promises, such as 360-degree camera included,” said Hermer.
More Amazon Aspects
VDG says that similarities with Amazon don’t end there. Just as Amazon gives the impression of almost infinite competition, many apparently independent products come from the same factories or corporate groups and the same pattern is emerging in the car market. For example, Omoda and Jaecoo are both Chery brands and numerous other famous marques like Volvo, Polestar, Lotus and several newer names all trace back to Geely.
“Although it appears at first sight that car brands are proliferating, they are typically originating from widely shared technology and a relatively small number of platforms, battery manufacturers and parent companies,” said Hermer. “So while it has often been said that online car buying was the main legacy of Amazon the reality is that the shift in the car market was deeper , from a limited choice of familiar brands towards a marketplace filled with unfamiliar but attractive Chinese products competing through price, features, fast availability and digital appeal. Marques like Ford and Vauxhall therefore experienced similar dynamics as electronics brands like Sony and Philips, which were challenged increasingly hard for market share by strong value-for-money unknown brands,” said Hermer.
VDG also highlights the contrast between Britain’s market and countries in Europe, where extra taxes between 7.8% and 35.3% were imposed on Chinese-built battery EVs in response to China’s BEV supply chain benefiting from state subsidies. Britain chose not to mirror EU duties, which made the British market more attractive to Chinese suppliers.
“None of this means that the game is over for the traditional automotive giants, who are still adjusting to the new conditions. Just as Amazon’s marketplace is characterized by very rapid entry, intense price competition and frequent disappearance of products, we believe that not all of the current Chinese brands will necessarily achieve the scale needed to maintain long-term success. The market is complex and expertise in managing the used market, residual values, parts supply and logistics chains is where the historically big names still have a real advantage. “This analysis of the changing market in Britain aims to explain just one under-recognized dynamic that has been at work and no one should ever write off those manufacturers who have more than a century of experience in keeping Britain on the move,” said Hermer.
*Vehicle Data Global describes itself “as an industry leading bulk data provider, which enables businesses across the automotive sector. Through cutting edge technology, they provide vehicle data information, spanning multiple international markets. VDG serves two billion data lookups a year, to clients across the entire global automotive ecosystem, including fleet & leasing, retail, insurance, finance, manufacturers and automotive publishers. The Vehicle Data Global team includes experts with deep experience in automotive data from across international markets, many of whom came from other major data providers, along with top flight developers and technology experts focused on providing seamless access to vehicle data worldwide.”
