Three leading car manufacturers capture nearly half the market

As Chart 1 indicates, these three leaders not only account for almost half of all new vehicle retail registrations, but their combined market share has climbed 4.7 percentage points since 2020.  Hyundai has driven this increase, providing 2.8 percentage points of share gain all by itself.

Chart 1 also shows an interesting development – the next seven leading car manufacturers, numbers 4 through 10, used to out-perform the top three, with a combined 2020 market share of 50.2%. But their aggregated performance has slipped to just 44.6% of the market this year.

Six of these second-tier manufacturers ceded share consistently from 2020 to 2025; the exception is Tesla, whose share has jumped 2.6 percentage points despite recent challenges. 

All three brands at Hyundai Motor Corp. enjoyed share increases, with Genesis’s share tripling to 3.5% on the tail winds of six models versus just three (all sedans) five years ago. Note that Kia’s share increased despite a lower model count.

Toyota’s brand gained a point in market share, thanks in part to an increase in its mainstream-leading portfolio to 21 models. Lexus’s share increased while its model count remained steady. 

General Motors, an industry leader in the EV space, has gained 1.12 PP of market share in the first seven months of 2025 by offering EVs across all four brands, almost ten times the OEM’s EV share compared to 2020.  Toyota and Hyundai also benefited from introducing EVs, though to a lesser extent than GM.

Toyota has reaped major rewards from its robust presence in the hybrid space.  Building on the exceptional historical success of the iconic Prius, Toyota now offers its hybrid propulsion system across most of its models, and it owes almost half of its 16.4% retail market share thus far in 2025 to hybrid registrations.   

Hyundai has also benefited from hybrid models, with its 2025 share lift from hybrids almost a multiple of ten compared to five years ago.  GM currently only offers hybrid propulsion system on the Corvette, so the company has not experienced any significant lift from this powertrain.

The three leading car manufacturers also have done a superior job of retaining existing owners.  As shown on Chart 4 below, both make and manufacturer loyalties declined less for these companies than they did for the “Next Seven” manufacturers. 

Manufacturer loyalty declined at the “Next Seven” five times as much as it did for the leaders, while brand loyalty dropped one percentage point more at the “Next Seven” than for the leaders.

(Note that all manufacturers experienced declines in this metric from 2020 to 2025 as post-pandemic loyalty rates industry-wide have failed to return to their pre-pandemic and early-pandemic levels.)

Lastly, the three leaders have been more effective in conquesting competitive owners (on a net basis – conquest less defection), as illustrated in Chart 5. Similar to the loyalty results, net conquest volumes declined industry-wide from 2020 to 2025 as households defected at greater rates post-pandemic, but these declines were less at the three leading OEMs than at the “Next Seven,” as shown below. 

In summary, by launching more alternative powertrain vehicles, retaining their customers at a greater rate, and conquesting competitive owners more effectively, GM, Toyota Motor Corp., and Hyundai Motor Corp. have moved to the top of the US manufacturer list and now are capturing almost half of all new vehicle registrations all by themselves. Continued growth will depend not only on innovation and conquesting strategies but also on closely monitoring and strengthening brand loyalty over time.