Leapmotor may already be selling some of Stellantis’ big-name brands in Australia, but the Chinese carmaker says its real focus isn’t on 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 that it plans to do so with a single global brand, rather than following the growing Chinese trend of launching multiple sister brands.
Speaking to Australian media in China, Francesco Giacalone, Leapmotor International’s Global Head of Brand Strategy, Product and Marketing, said the company is focused on building value around the Leapmotor name internationally.
Asked whether Leapmotor could follow its Chinese rivals by launching sub-brands under 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 carmakers, many of which are introducing multiple brands to cover different buyer groups, price points and personalities in Australia.
The Chery group’s growing local brand family now includes Chery, Omoda Jaecoo and Lepas, for example, with Chery Australia saying these brands are designed to target different types of buyers rather than sitting on the traditional premium ladder. Essentially, it acts as a more ‘horizontal’ strategy than the vertical brand hierarchies often employed by European and Japanese car manufacturers.
The Chery group’s Australian expansion is only getting wider. While Lepas will launch here later this year, iCaur and Freelander will arrive between now and the end of 2027, and Jetour has also confirmed its intentions to enter the Australian market.
Chery is not alone in its multi-brand strategy: MG and BYD have launched the premium brands IM Motors and Denza respectively. Leapmotor, on the other hand, 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 percent of Australian market segments within three years and offer up to six models locally.
The brand launched the C10 mid-size SUV here 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 one is A10 – known as the B03X in export markets – is being considered for Australia, where it would be below B10 and rival the BYD Atto 2.
At the other end of the range, Leapmotor is also expanding upward through its D-series models with the D19 flagship SUV, while the B05 electric hatch already confirmed for Australia. AutoExpert has reported that the regular B05 will go on sale here in the fourth quarter of 2026, while it’s hotter B05 Ultra has just been unveiled in China and is expected to follow suit.
The strategy also comes as Leapmotor’s Australian sales are starting to increase, albeit from low levels.
By March 2026, Leapmotor delivered 170 vehicles in Australia, putting 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 lagged behind Fiat with 212.
In the first quarter of 2026, Leapmotor delivered 277 vehicles in Australia. That placed it ahead of Peugeot at 252, Jeep at 191 and Alfa Romeo at 96, but behind Fiat at 408.
Mr. Giacalone said Leapmotor’s performance against Stellantis-owned brands should be seen in context because Leapmotor is a different proposition and competes more directly with Chinese brands. That is a much tougher benchmark in our market.
In March, BYD delivered 7217 vehicles in Australia, GWM 5680, MG 4218 and Chery 4018. Omoda Jaecoo, Chery’s sister brand, delivered 1010 vehicles in the same month.
In the first quarter of 2026, BYD delivered 16,041 vehicles, GWM 14,878, Chery 11,736 and MG 9595. Even Omoda Jaecoo, which was only launched locally in 2025, delivered 2,516 vehicles in the same period.
So the challenge for Leapmotor is not to beat Stellantis’ small brands, but to become relevant in a market where Chinese brands are growing rapidly, launching new models quickly and increasingly using multiple brands to broaden their appeal.
Leapmotor has a number of European advantages that should make its product range stand out. It is internationally backed by Stellantis, which invested 1.5 billion euros in Leapmotor in 2023 and acquired about 21 percent of the Chinese carmaker. Stellantis also controls 51 percent of Leapmotor International, the joint venture that exports vehicles to Australia and Europe, among others.
Leapmotor is a young company founded in China in 2015, offering exclusively electric vehicles (EVs) and extended range electric vehicles (EREVs). The downside to using just one brand is that Leapmotor will have to stretch from affordable small electric cars to potentially large, premium SUVs and performance variants like the B05 Ultra.
For now, Leapmotor seems comfortable with that and, rather than creating new brands, the plan is to build brand recognition around the Leapmotor name – and use a rapidly growing model range to take on the Chinese brands already reshaping the Australian new car market.
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