5 Minutes
China’s ultra luxury sedan race has a new center of gravity, and it is not coming from Munich, Stuttgart, or Ingolstadt. In April 2026, the Maextro S800 once again led the country’s sedan market above €97,000, posting 1,142 registrations and stretching its advantage over a field still dominated, at least on paper, by Europe’s most established names.
That matters because this is the part of the market where reputation usually moves slower than product cycles. Yet the Huawei and JAC backed S800 is not just holding its ground. It is pulling away. The Mercedes Maybach S Class finished second with 736 units, followed by the Porsche Panamera at 616. The Mercedes Benz S Class came in fourth with 521, while the BMW 7 Series, including the fully electric i7, slipped to fifth on 436. Audi’s A8 landed sixth with 260.
The monthly table tells one story. The shift underneath it tells a bigger one. Back in January, BMW’s 7 Series and i7 combo was the closest challenger to the S800. By April, BMW had dropped three places. Mercedes Maybach climbed into second, and the Panamera made the sharpest move among the European brands, jumping from sixth to third. Audi, once inside the top five, was pushed out.
Over the first four months of 2026, the Maextro S800 remains comfortably ahead with 5,465 sales. Mercedes Maybach follows at 3,012, only just ahead of the BMW 7 Series and i7 at 2,976. The Mercedes Benz S Class sits at 2,596, while the Porsche Panamera and Audi A8 trail at 1,362 and 1,309 respectively. Lower down the order, newer Chinese entrants are still building momentum, with the Nio ET9 on 136 April sales and the Yangwang U7 on 75, while the Porsche Taycan managed just 18.
Not a one month fluke
The April result was also a recovery month for Maextro. After opening 2026 with 2,798 sales in January, S800 volume cooled to 922 in February and 783 in March. April brought the rebound, with sales rising 45.9% month on month to 1,142 units. That bounce suggests demand has not disappeared. It paused, then returned.
Looking further back, the car’s launch trajectory already hinted at staying power. Deliveries began with 1,006 units in August 2025, then rose to 1,896 in September and 1,970 in October. November softened to 2,205 before December surged to 4,223, a 91.5% jump from the previous month. For a newcomer in a conservative, image driven segment, those numbers are hard to dismiss.
The wider backdrop makes the S800’s performance even more striking. Several German premium brands had a difficult start to the year in China. BMW Group deliveries in the country fell 10% year on year to 143,958 vehicles in the first quarter of 2026. Mercedes Benz dropped 27% to 111,600. Audi also reported weaker results, with the A6L down 9% in March to 15,262 units, while BMW 5 Series sales were largely flat at 11,304.
In other words, the old guard is not just being challenged in niches. Pressure is building across the board, and the ultra premium sedan segment is becoming one of the clearest stages for that change.
Maextro itself is central to Huawei’s broader automotive ambitions. The brand was created with JAC Motors under the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance, and the S800 became its first production model when it arrived in 2025. Buyers can choose between battery electric and extended range electric versions, with pricing running from about €97,300 to roughly €139,900.
Huawei has already signaled that the S800 will receive an updated version featuring its new 896 line production lidar system, built around a dual optical path architecture designed to support more advanced intelligent driving functions. In this price bracket, technology is no longer a supporting detail. For many buyers, it is the pitch.
And Maextro is not stopping at one flagship sedan. Regulatory filings have already revealed the upcoming V800 luxury MPV, a massive model measuring 5.5 meters in length and weighing more than 3.2 tonnes. Another variant, the Maextro S800 Grand Design, has also cleared filings as a high customisation version aimed at buyers who want something even more exclusive. Huawei executive Richard Yu previously said that model would target the two million yuan class, which converts to roughly €276,600.
For now, though, the headline is simple. Even in a segment where Mercedes Maybach, Porsche, BMW, and Audi still hold most of the prime real estate, the Maextro S800 is setting the pace. Its April tally of 1,142 sales came close to matching the combined total of the second placed Mercedes Maybach S Class and the third placed Porsche Panamera. In a market where status used to be imported, that is a powerful signal.
Comments
rpmvault
No way, Huawei backed sedan outselling Maybach and Porsche in China? wild. Tech over brand now.. curious how the Europeans will react
bytewave
Wait, Maextro beating Maybach? is this even true... China flexing hard, but can it keep up long term? If that's real then wow, market shaken
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