Leapmotor may already be outselling some familiar Stellantis-owned brands in Australia, but the Chinese automaker says its real focus is not Jeep, Peugeot or Alfa Romeo.
Instead, Leapmotor says it is measuring itself against fast-growing Chinese rivals such as BYD, GWM, MG and Chery – and it intends to do so with a single global brand, rather than following the growing Chinese trend of launching multiple sister brands.
Speaking with Australian media in China, Leapmotor International’s Global Head of Brand Strategy, Product and Marketing, Francesco Giacalone, said the company is concentrating on building value around the Leapmotor name internationally.
Asked whether Leapmotor could follow Chinese rivals by launching sub-brands beneath it, Mr Giacalone said the company was, at least for now, focused on the Leapmotor brand itself.
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That puts Leapmotor on a different path to several other Chinese automakers, many of which are introducing multiple brands to cover different buyer groups, price points and personalities in Australia.
As an example, the Chery group’s growing local family of brands now includes Chery, Omoda Jaecoo and Lepas, with Chery Australia saying those brands are designed to target different types of buyers rather than sit on a traditional premium ladder. In essence, acting as a more “horizontal” strategy than the vertical brand hierarchies often adopted by European and Japanese automakers.
The Chery group’s Australian expansion is only getting broader. While Lepas will launch here later this year, iCaur and Freelander are due to arrive between now and the end of 2027, and Jetour has also confirmed its intentions to enter the Australian market.
Chery isn’t alone in its multi-brand strategy, with MG and BYD having launched the IM Motors and Denza premium brands respectively. Leapmotor, in contrast, wants to keep the focus on one badge.
That doesn’t mean it will have a narrow model range. Leapmotor Australia has previously said it plans to cover 65 per cent of Australian market segments within three years, and offer up to six models locally.
The brand launched here with the C10 mid-size SUV in late 2024, before adding the B10 small SUV earlier this year. The B10 is priced from $37,888 before on-road costs, while the smaller A10 – known as the B03X in export markets – is under consideration for Australia, where it would sit below the B10 and rival the BYD Atto 2.
At the other end of the range, Leapmotor is also expanding upwards through its D-series models with the D19 flagship SUV, while the B05 electric hatch is already confirmed for Australia. CarExpert has reported the regular B05 will go on sale here in the fourth quarter of 2026, while the hotter B05 Ultra has just been revealed in China and is expected to follow.
The strategy also comes as Leapmotor’s Australian sales start to build, albeit from a low base.
In March 2026, Leapmotor delivered 170 vehicles in Australia, That put it ahead of other Stellantis brands such as Peugeot (distributed in Australia by Inchcape) with 102 deliveries, Jeep with 58 and Alfa Romeo with 31, although it remained behind Fiat on 212.
Across the first quarter of 2026, Leapmotor delivered 277 vehicles in Australia. That placed it ahead of Peugeot on 252, Jeep on 191 and Alfa Romeo on 96, but behind Fiat on 408.
Mr Giacalone said Leapmotor’s performance against Stellantis-owned brands should be viewed in context, because Leapmotor is a different proposition and is more directly competing with Chinese brands. That is a much tougher benchmark in our market.
In March, BYD delivered 7217 vehicles in Australia, GWM delivered 5680, MG delivered 4218 and Chery delivered 4018. Omoda Jaecoo, Chery’s separate sister brand, delivered 1010 vehicles in the same month.
Across the first quarter of 2026, BYD delivered 16,041 vehicles, GWM delivered 14,878, Chery delivered 11,736 and MG delivered 9595. Even Omoda Jaecoo, which only launched locally in 2025, delivered 2516 vehicles in the same period.
Leapmotor’s challenge, then, is not to beat low-volume Stellantis-owned brands but to become relevant in a market where Chinese brands are growing quickly, launching new models at speed, and increasingly using multiple brands to broaden their appeal.
Leapmotor has some European advantages that should help its product lineup stand out. It is backed internationally by Stellantis, which in 2023 invested €1.5 billion (A$2.5bn) in Leapmotor, purchasing about 21 per cent of the Chinese automaker. Stellantis also controls 51 per cent of Leapmotor International, the joint venture exporting vehicles to markets including Australia and Europe.
Leapmotor is a young company, founded in China in 2015, and exclusively offers electric vehicles (EVs) and extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs). The trade-off of using just one brand is that Leapmotor will need to stretch from affordable small EVs to potentially large, premium-leaning SUVs and performance variants like the B05 Ultra.
For now, Leapmotor appears comfortable with that and, rather than creating new brands, its plan is to build brand recognition around the Leapmotor name – and use a rapidly expanding model range to take the fight to the Chinese brands already reshaping the Australian new-car market.
