Chinese Trucks Reportedly Starting to Erode Indonesia's Commercial Vehicle Market

KatadataOTO – The commercial vehicle market in 2025 is experiencing a slowdown. As seen in the truck segment.

Processing data from the Association of Indonesian Automotive Industries (Gaikindo) for the period of January to November 2025, retail truck sales were only around 53,009 units.

This figure is quite far from the achievement in 2024. Last year, sales of 59,477 units were recorded.

This means that commercial vehicle sales in the truck segment have decreased by 11 percent, or the equivalent of 6,468 units.

Photo: Antara

This phenomenon is predicted to be caused by several factors. For example, the presence of trucks from China in the country.

“The Chinese trucks that go directly to the mines are not recorded, because they are not members of Gaikindo,” said Aji Jaya, Sales and Marketing Director of KTB, in Surabaya, East Java some time ago.

Aji stated that the use of products from China in mining areas in Indonesia is said to be quite significant.

This situation also affects the commercial vehicle market, especially products from manufacturers that have invested in Indonesia.

“That's the fact, actually if the recorded and unrecorded (number of Chinese trucks) are combined, the figure would surely be different,” Aji continued.

Whereas, Aji said, if all Chinese trucks in Indonesia could be recorded, the national sales figures could be slightly boosted.

However, this is not what is happening. Products from the Land of the Bamboo Curtain can still hit the roads freely.

Indeed, the presence of Chinese trucks has the potential to affect the market, as many consumers are switching to commercial vehicles from China.

Moreover, these products still adhere to Euro 2 or Euro 3 emission standards.

Meanwhile, manufacturers in Indonesia have implemented the Euro 4 emission standard as a mandatory rule for new products.

In addition, the relatively cheap price of Chinese trucks encourages many parties to buy them for business needs.