债务减免帮助汽车市场跨越“中等收入陷阱”（英）

Insights on Household Income & Expense of Chinese Car Buyers –Debt Burden (2025)TengYi Research InstituteDebt Relief Helps China’s Car Market Overcome the“Middle-Income Trap” AuthorsDirector/Chief Analystzhoulijun1@yiche.comLijun ZhouIndustry Analystshibenya@yiche.comBenya ShiFrom 2015 to 2019, driven by the continuous boom in real estate and successive collapses in P2P finance, debt penetration among Chinese car-buying households rose rapidly. In both 2019 and 2020, it exceeded 80%, meaning that more than four out of five households were in debt – like living under a sword hanging overhead, possible to fall at any time. The pressure eased somewhat during the latter stages of the pandemic and declined further after the pandemic ended, dropping below 70% to 65.97% in 2024. Some households who purchased homes between 2010 and 2019, despite taking out 20- or 25-year mortgages, managed to repay their loans early – often about 10 years into the mortgage – thanks to income growth and interest rate fluctuations, which helped reduce household debt. Between 2020 and 2024, the number of judicially auctioned homes increased sharply across China, forming a striking new phenomenon;In 2024, total debt of car-buying households in China was concentrated in the range of RMB 200,000-700,000, accounting for nearly 40% of the total. The RMB 500,000–700,000 bracket was the most prominent, making up close to 14%. The proportion of households with debts exceeding RMB 700,000 dropped significantly: those owing RMB 700,000–1,000,000 fell to slightly above 10%, RMB 1,000,000–1,500,000 declined to around 9%, and RMB 1,500,000–2,000,000 to about 6.5%. Although only less than 3% of households owed more than RMB 2,000,000, their large absolute amounts notably pushed up the overall average. In 2024, average household debt among Chinese car buyers still reached as high as RMB 620,000. Assuming economic stability, a middle-class household with an annual income of RMB200,000–300,000 would need to devote one-third of its income to debt repayment, taking roughly 6-10 years to pay it off – still a considerable burden. The median household debt stood at RMB 380,000, much lower than the average, yet for households earning less than RMB100,000 annually, even allocating one-third of their income would require over 10 years to clear their debts, which remains far from easy;Between 2020 and 2024, China’s passenger car (new vehicle) market underwent rapid “middle-class transformation,” with the middle-class share rising swiftly from below 35% to over 45%. Middle-class families have thus become the new main force of China’s car market. From 2025 to 2030, if the proportion of middle-class car buyers continues to grow while their debt levels fail to improve – or even further constrain their capacity for vehicle upgrading and replacement – the China’s car market could fall into a “middle-income trap.” When that happens, carmakers’ top-priority strategy of moving upmarket will face severe chall