1. The Ranking
2. Three Signals
Signal 1
- Fact: Chinese brands took 51.7% of Singapore’s new-car market in August 2026 (46.8% excluding MG), up from 49.9% in July and 30.3% a year earlier.
- Read: In a market this small and EV-hungry, China has become the default choice, not the cheap alternative. Half the board now wears a Chinese badge.
Signal 2
- Fact: BYD led with 1,100 units for a 24.2% share, its best monthly share since May and more than Toyota and Mercedes combined.
- Read: BYD is not just winning. It is lapping the field, with Tesla the only non-Chinese name in the top two.
Signal 3
- Fact: Chery (+258.8%), Xpeng (+126.5%), Zeekr (+154.4%) and MG (+82.0%) all posted triple-digit or near-triple-digit gains, GAC set an all-time high at 250 units, and newcomer Leapmotor entered the table at rank 22.
- Read: The second wave is arriving as fast as the first. The ranking is being rebuilt from rank six down, and the bench behind BYD is now deeper than any incumbent’s electrified ladder.
3. The Take
Singapore is the cleanest proof of the China thesis, because price cannot explain it. A certificate of entitlement costs more than most of the cars sold on this island, so nobody buys a Chinese electric car in Singapore to save money. They buy it because it is the better product.
In August they bought 2,352 of them. Chinese brands took 51.7% of the 4,549 registrations, up from 49.9% in July and 30.3% a year earlier, and 46.8% without MG. BYD alone took 1,100 cars and 24.2% of the market, more than Toyota and Mercedes combined. It has now led this market for twenty straight months.
The other side of the ledger reads the same way. Toyota, with Lexus folded in, took 444 and fell 27.0%. Mercedes-Benz fell 42.2% to 260. BMW fell 41.1% to 234. Meanwhile MG rose 82.0% to 222, GAC climbed 145.1% to an all-time high of 250, Chery took 183, Xpeng 154 and Zeekr 145. Five of the top eleven badges are Chinese, and the ones below are arriving faster than the ones above are growing.
None of this is scale. The COE system holds this market to roughly 4,500 cars a month, so Singapore will never move a global number. That is exactly what makes it worth watching. When the constraint is scarcity rather than price, the preference it reveals is the one that travels.
4. Sources
- Source: LTA new car registrations.
- Published: 2026-09-15.
- Compiled by RobotBelt from LTA data. LTA publishes no official ranking.
- Cross-checked: bestsellingcarsblog (LTA data) / MarkLines / sgcarstrends.
- Basis: LTA new car registrations. August 2026 total 4,549 units, -2.2% year on year. Year to date 36,646, +10.3%. Electric 63.3% of August registrations, petrol-electric 24.9%, plug-in hybrid 6.3%, petrol 5.4%.
- LTA August 2026 registration table (Top 47 all brands), via bestsellingcarsblog.com ‘Singapore August 2026: GAC at all-time high, Chinese at 51.7% share’, published 2026-09-15. Toyota figure includes Lexus.
- Chinese brands combined: 2,352 units, 51.7% share, +66.9% YoY (2,352 vs 1,409 a year earlier, when the share was 30.3%). Excluding MG the Chinese total is 2,130 units, 46.8% of the market.
- Cross-check: motormetrics.app (LTA DataMall) Singapore August 2026 by make — total 4,549, Electric 63.3%, Petrol-Electric 24.9%, Plug-in Hybrid 6.3%, Petrol 5.4% — matches the LTA table.
- Compiled by RobotBelt from LTA new-registration data by make. LTA does not publish a ranking.