PDF IN CN, 30 pages.
Summary: China's automotive aftermarket sits on a massive but maturing base: total parc exceeds 350 million units, average vehicle age is climbing, and NEV stock is expanding rapidly—together driving a pivot from volume-led growth to structural upgrade and value-chain reconfiguration.
1) Scale is stabilizing; NEV is the real growth driver. Gross maintenance/repair spend has hovered around RMB 1.0–1.2 trillion, flattening after post-pandemic swings (mid-single-digit rebounds giving way to low/slightly negative growth). By contrast, the NEV service segment has grown ~10x, from roughly RMB 9.1bn (2020) to ~RMB 90.4bn (2025), now ~8% of the total—and still early-cycle.
2) Two diverging playbooks. ICEs (avg. age ~8.2 years) run on a mature, mechanically intensive logic; NEVs (avg. ~1.8 years, ~90% within 1–3 years) shift the center of gravity to battery/motor/controller systems, high-voltage safety, BMS diagnostics, software/OTA, and authorized service scopes. Competitive advantage is migrating from "generalist repair" to certification access, diagnostic data capability, and controlled part flows.
3) Where margin will be won/lost. Online traffic acquisition costs are rising; winning requires content-driven trust, transparent pricing, speed guarantees, and private-domain retention rather than blunt paid funnel. Upstream, tighter battery traceability/recycling compliance (new cross-ministry rules effective April 2026) raises the bar: the future belongs to players with qualification, data, and integrated repair and recovery loops.
4) Adjacent engines: used cars & CV. Used-car transactions reached ~20.1m units (+2.52%), yet the parc-to-flow rate (~5.49%) implies large latent liquidity once standards/information gaps close. NEV used-car volumes hit ~1.6m (+42%), but low/volatile residuals and missing battery-health benchmarks are the binding constraint. Commercial vehicles (~40m+ parc) face structurally shrinking repair demand as reliability rises and fleets organize; value shifts from part-count to TCO, uptime, telematics, and lifecycle contracts.
The aftermarket isn't short of demand—it's short of trust, capability, and compliant scale. Winners will combine transparent, fast execution at the counter with upstream credentials + data-led operations.