At the 2025 Shell Financial Annual Meeting, which opened on July 10, Huang Qifan, former mayor of Chongqing in the People’s Republic of China, revealed that the profit from selling 30 million cars in China is not even comparable to the profit of one Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan. This news quickly became a hot topic in mainland China on July 13.
During the meeting, Huang Qifan pointed out that the automobile manufacturing industry in China should logically have relatively high efficiency. As of June this year, the profit margin of the automotive industry was only 5%. The profit from selling 30 million cars in China is less than that of Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan, with Toyota’s profit from selling 9 million cars surpassing the benefits of China’s 30 million cars.
According to an IT media report on July 10, Toyota Motor Corporation announced its financial report for the 2025 fiscal year (April 2024 to March 2025) on May 8, with a net profit of 4.765 trillion Japanese yen (approximately 2337.28 billion Chinese yuan).
Based on data from DearAuto, a new media platform focusing on the Chinese automotive sector, among the 18 listed passenger car companies in China, only 13 were profitable with a total net profit of 122.677 billion Chinese yuan in 2024. Including the 5 companies that reported losses, the net profit of listed passenger car companies in China would decrease by 33.2 billion yuan, resulting in a total profit of less than 90 billion yuan for all Chinese listed passenger car companies, which is less than 40% of Toyota’s annual profit.
In terms of per-vehicle profit, for the 2025 fiscal year, Toyota’s global sales are expected to reach 10.4 million units, with a per-vehicle profit of around 22,900 yuan. By comparison, the leading Chinese automaker BYD has a per-vehicle profit of only 9,400 yuan (402.5 billion yuan / 42.72 million units).
The 2025 Shell Financial Annual Meeting took place in Beijing and Shanghai on July 10, 11, and 15.