Well, objectively speaking Chinese cars (with some exceptions like the BYD electrics for example) are not as good as european or Japanese cars. Which really is one of the main reason many Chinese people themselves prefer foreign cars.
Chinese car makers though have come a long way. And they are also moving forward pretty fast. The delta in quality between a chinese entry level sedan produced 10 years ago and one produced now is enormous! And also indicative of the future.
Chinese brands cars today owns about 40% of the domestic Chinese market. The rest 60% is shared by German, Japanese, American, Korean, and French car brands. From the market share number, we can say:
- Chinese car customers prefer none-Chinese brands cars over Chinese brands cars. Considering Chinese brands share is less than half today, this is a fair comment.
- However, we can also say that Chinese car customers prefer Chinese brands cars over German brands, over Japanese brands, over American brands, over Korean brands, and over French brands. Considering Chinese brands share is bigger than any of the mentioned foreign car brands alone, this is also a fair comment.
Actually, what you raised is a very interesting question, but may be easily ignored. That is,
how many countries on the earth has the privilege that its domestic car brands owns larger than 50% of its domestic car market.
I could only think of four countries meet the criteria: Germany, Japan, France, and South Korea. All are the "superpowers" in the automobile industry. Please let me know if you think any other countries are missing.
As said, the share of Chinese brands in China today is around 40%. But in just six or seven years ago, the share was just around 25%. The market share expansion from 25% to 40% in a short period of time, this is a remarkable progress, especially if we consider the overall Chinese market grows from 12 million units sales in a year, to 24 million units sales. Considering this, I will not feel surprises that the Chinese brands continue to expand the market share and achieve the 50% threshold in a meaningful time.