Porsche delivers China's 1 millionth car, a 911 GT3 Touring, as sales slide

Porsche AG (FRA: P911) handed over its one millionth new car in mainland China this month, a 911 GT3 Touring, twenty-five years after the brand opened its first dealership in Beijing. The delivery lands in the middle of a stretch that has seen China sales fall for four consecutive years from their 2021 peak, turning what should be a straightforward celebration into a snapshot of how much the market has cooled since Porsche's best years there.

The count is distinct from Porsche's 2017 celebration of the one millionth 911 built worldwide, a car the brand toured through Shanghai and Beijing that year as one stop on a global tour. This week's total instead tracks every Porsche model sold to a mainland Chinese customer since the brand's first showroom opened.

The 1,000,000th car itself carries a starting price of 2,268,000 CNY (c. $338,600) in China and pairs a naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six making 375 kW (503 hp) and 450 Nm of torque with a choice of manual or dual-clutch gearboxes. With the dual-clutch transmission it reaches 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3.4 seconds and tops out at 311 km/h (193 mph); the manual is marginally slower to 100 km/h at 3.9 seconds but tops out higher, at 313 km/h (194 mph). Philipp von Witzendorff, Porsche China's chief operating officer, delivered the keys to the buyer in person.

This press car is finished in Oak Green Metallic, one of the Touring Package's launch colors. (Porsche)

The Touring Package strips the GT3's fixed rear wing for a discreet ducktail spoiler, a look Porsche introduced in 2017 as a nod to the wingless 1973 Carrera RS 2.7 Touring. Choosing that variant for the millionth handover put a car built for driving enthusiasts, rather than track-day spectacle, at the center of the ceremony.

Porsche staged the celebration at its Porsche Experience Center in Shanghai on September 14, 2026, as part of a companywide "Enjoy Supercar Day" gathering that drew more than 1,200 owners and over 400 Porsche cars, from early air-cooled 911s to current GT models. The event doubled as the formal marker of the brand's quarter-century run in China, with organizers using it to walk guests through the brand's history in the country rather than unveil anything new.

Porsche's mainland China business started at the Beijing Chang'an Porsche Center, which opened in 2001, and did not clear 10,000 annual deliveries until 2010, when the brand sold 14,785 cars. Volume kept climbing until China became Porsche's largest single market worldwide in 2015, a position it held for eight consecutive years before North America overtook it in 2023. China remains Porsche's second-largest market today, even as its share of the brand's global volume keeps shrinking.

Deliveries peaked at 95,671 cars in 2021, then fell every year since: 93,300 in 2022, 79,300 in 2023, 56,900 in 2024 and 41,938 in 2025. The first half of 2026 brought just 14,501 deliveries, down 32 percent year over year, a four-year slide that has erased more than half of the brand's 2021 China volume.

The strain shows up in Porsche AG's group results. Full-year 2025 operating profit collapsed 92.7 percent to 413 million EUR (c. $474 million) after a 3.9 billion EUR (c. $4.5 billion) writedown, split roughly between 2.4 billion EUR in realignment costs, 700 million EUR tied to battery-related activities and 700 million EUR linked to U.S. tariffs. China's share of Porsche's global deliveries slipped to 15 percent last year from 18 percent, even as the brand's cumulative China count kept climbing toward seven figures.

Porsche has pointed to broad pressure across China's luxury segment and intensifying competition from electric rivals on price and technology. Rather than chase volume, the brand says it is prioritizing profitability and dealer health, cutting its China network from about 150 outlets in 2024 to roughly 114 by the end of 2025, with about 80 planned for the end of 2026. It is also winding down roughly 200 self-built charging stations starting March 1, 2026, in favor of third-party charging partners.

President and CEO Pan Liqi has cast the pullback as patience rather than retreat, pointing to the brand's motorsport heritage and saying Porsche is "not sprinters but participants in endurance racing." Porsche is also weighing an SUV positioned above the Cayenne, to launch first as a combustion model, arguing that while the Cayenne reads as large by German standards, some buyers in China and the United States want something bigger.

Porsche opened its first China-based community space in Shenzhen in March 2026 and has lined up more than 30 owner events for the year. Despite the sales slide, the Cayenne and Macan, which have long made up the bulk of Porsche's China volume, topped their SUV segments in J.D. Power's 2025 China rankings, more than half of China sales are now financed through Porsche's own arm, and its certified used-car business grew 12 percent. Globally, Porsche delivered about 122,300 cars in the first half of 2026, down 16.5 percent year over year, with battery-electric and plug-in models falling faster still, down 30.8 percent.

The Touring Package deletes the GT3's fixed rear wing for a ducktail spoiler, a look Porsche revived in 2017 as a nod to the 1973 Carrera RS 2.7 Touring. (Porsche)

Handing the keys of a six-figure, track-bred Touring wagon to a single collector is an unusual way to mark a sales slump, but it fits the message Porsche keeps repeating in China: fewer cars, sold to buyers who actually want a 911, rather than a broader lineup chasing volume it may not get back.

Conversion rate: 1 USD = 6.70 CNY as of September 18, 2026.

Conversion rate: 1 EUR = 1.15 USD as of September 18, 2026.