Porsche has delivered its one millionth new car in mainland China, a 911 GT3 Touring handed over at the Porsche Experience Centre Shanghai on September 13. The milestone closes out a 25-year run that began with a single Beijing dealership in 2001, but it lands at an awkward moment: China, once Porsche's biggest market by far, took just 14,501 deliveries in the first half of 2026, actually fewer than Germany's 14,938.

Porsche China chief operating officer Philipp von Witzendorff presented the keys during Enjoy Supercar Day, part of a global Sportscar Together Day weekend that brought roughly 14,000 people to ten Porsche Experience Centres worldwide. The Shanghai event alone drew more than 1,200 owners and over 400 cars. The GT3 Touring itself is no ordinary showpiece: it runs a 4.0-litre naturally aspirated flat-six making 510 hp and 450 Nm, hits 100 km/h in 3.4 seconds with the PDK gearbox, tops out at 311 km/h, and trades the 911 GT3's fixed wing for a retractable spoiler. It starts at 2.268 million yuan in China.

The numbers behind the milestone tell a starker story. China's Porsche sales climbed steadily from 46,931 in 2014 to a peak of 95,671 in 2021, making it the brand's top market from 2015 onward. Since then it's been all downhill: 93,286 in 2022, 79,283 in 2023, 56,887 in 2024, and 41,938 in 2025 — a 26 percent drop that Porsche has pinned on softness in the luxury segment and rising EV competition. The first half of 2026 fell another 32 percent.

The dealer network is contracting even faster than sales. Porsche had around 150 outlets in China in 2024, down to 114 by the end of 2025, with CEO Alexander Pollich targeting about 80 for 2026. Porsche also began shutting down its roughly 200-station Chinese charging network on March 1, 2026. Pollich has ruled out local manufacturing or China-specific EVs, sticking instead to a "value-oriented" strategy that prioritizes price over volume.

Notably, the 911 line is the one bright spot, up 19 percent globally in the first half of 2026 even as the Cayenne, Macan, Taycan and Panamera all declined. That may explain why a GT3 Touring, not a Cayenne, got the honor.

The milestone arrived amid grim financial news: Volkswagen cut its 2026 margin guidance after a €6 billion impairment tied to Porsche, and Handelsblatt reported supervisory board files proposing roughly 4,100 additional job cuts at Porsche. Porsche's 2025 net profit fell 91 percent to €310 million, with China's share of global deliveries sliding from 31.7 percent in 2021 to just 15 percent last year.

Source: AutoNext.co

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