Defending the "Fourth City" title, has Chongqing truly surpassed Guangzhou? | Regional Innovation Analysis

Asking AI · How would a single-industry structure in Chongqing affect its economic resilience?

In 2025, Chongqing achieved a regional GDP of 3,375.793 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%, surpassing Guangzhou for the second consecutive year. Compared to the previous year, the gap between the two has narrowed to 171.85B yuan.

Additionally, Chongqing has overtaken Guangzhou to reclaim the title of the “Auto Capital,” a position Guangzhou held for five years, and has topped the list again after ten years. Especially notable is the production of new energy vehicles reaching 1.3M units, a 36% increase; meanwhile, Guangzhou’s output in the same period was only 660,000 units.

Thus, there is a popular saying: “Beijing-Shanghai-Shenzhen-Chongqing.”

Has Chongqing truly surpassed Guangzhou to become China’s fourth-largest city?

From the GDP perspective, yes. But an important premise not to ignore is that Chongqing’s area is 11 times that of Guangzhou, and its permanent population is 1.7 times larger. Moreover, when evaluating a city, not only economic size matters; industrial structure, innovation capacity, and other indicators are equally important.

The innovation ecosystem of listed companies offers an excellent vantage point. In 2025, the Southern Weekly China Enterprise Innovation Database covers operating entities/controlling shareholders listed on A-shares, Hong Kong stocks, and U.S. stocks in China. Among them, 84 companies are registered in Chongqing, which still lags behind the 727, 629, 580, and 250 companies listed in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, respectively.

What is more concerning is the industrial structure: automotive dominates, with nine related companies generating revenue that accounts for 40% of the total revenue of all registered companies in the city; other industries are evidently fragmented and lack innovation. This reliance on a single industry is precisely the “pitfall” Guangzhou experienced. Chongqing’s overtaking stems from a specific window of industry shift, a snapshot in the dynamic adjustment of regional economic maps; whether Chongqing can prepare for the next industry shift remains to be seen.

New Energy Vehicles, Turning the Tide

In 2025, Chongqing’s manufacturing added value increased by 7.0%, with all major and pillar industry clusters achieving comprehensive growth. Notably, the added value of intelligent connected new energy vehicles grew by 13.4%, becoming the largest growth engine.

Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou are also automotive hubs, but Shanghai has stronger pillars in pharmaceuticals, information transmission, software, and IT services; Shenzhen excels in hardware, with rapid development in consumer electronics, electrical industries, and specialized equipment manufacturing. Only Chongqing and Guangzhou have automotive as the largest revenue contributor within their manufacturing sectors. Therefore, Chongqing’s challenge to become the “Fourth City” can largely focus on a competition centered around new energy vehicles.

Currently, Chongqing has nine registered companies in the automotive manufacturing sector, the most in any industry; they generated a total revenue of 661.9k yuan, nearly 40% (39.47%) of the total revenue of all registered companies in the city.

Chart created by Southern Weekly researchers, data source: 2025 Southern Weekly China Enterprise Innovation Database

In 2024, Chongqing’s GDP surpassed Guangzhou; in the same year, its vehicle output also edged out Guangzhou by a slight margin of 324.7B units. The growth mainly came from new energy vehicles—production surged by 90.5% to 953.2k units, meaning approximately one in every 2.67 “Chongqing-made” cars is an EV. During the same period, Guangzhou’s new energy vehicle output was only 544.2k units.

Following that, in 2025, Chongqing’s new energy vehicle output continued to grow at a high rate of 36.0%, reaching 1.2961 million units, pushing the city’s total vehicle production to 2.7877 million units, which helped maintain its position as the fourth-largest city in China by GDP.

① Chart by Southern Weekly researchers, data source: municipal statistical bureaus; ② The dark-colored parts in the clustered chart represent the new energy vehicle output of each city, matched with white data labels; black data labels indicate total vehicle output; ③ The total vehicle output for Guangzhou in 2025 has not yet been announced; this figure is a forecast; ④ BYD officially ceased producing fuel vehicles in March 2022, so nearly all vehicles produced in Shenzhen are new energy vehicles; from 2025, the statistical scope changed from the long-used “enterprise legal domicile” to “production location,” so BYD’s out-of-town factories’ output is no longer counted in Shenzhen, and thus, the 2025 Shenzhen vehicle output data has not been published and no longer holds a scale advantage.

Chart by Southern Weekly researchers, data source: municipal statistical bureaus

Clearly, the stumbling block for Guangzhou’s automotive progress is its failure in electrification transformation, which has given Chongqing a time window.

Historically, both cities have experienced the pain of transitioning from “oil dominance to electric dominance.” Guangzhou’s vehicle output entered a bottleneck after 2018, with sluggish growth; Chongqing’s vehicle output was similarly halved in 2018, facing turbulence earlier and more intensely than Guangzhou. Their respective leading automakers—Changan and GAC—are in very similar situations, both facing the “elephant turning” dilemma. But why can one quickly reverse its momentum and emerge from the pain, while the other sinks deeper?

The key lies in the companies’ response speed and strategic choices.

Around 2018, China’s auto market ended its high-growth phase and entered a period of adjustment. Most automaker groups’ profits heavily depended on joint venture brands, such as GAC Toyota and GAC Honda, which together accounted for half of GAC Group’s total sales. But Changan was an exception—its joint venture segment faced earlier pressure, with Changan Ford experiencing a dramatic plunge.

This forced Changan to accelerate its focus on independent new energy brands and speed up intelligent transformation. As early as late 2017, Changan launched the “Shangri-La” plan, announcing electrification across its entire product line by 2025. It was also among the earliest automakers to cooperate with Horizon, Huawei, and other intelligent driving firms; brands like Avita and Deep Blue, collaborating with Huawei and CATL, have now become sales pillars.

In contrast, other automakers like GAC lagged behind. Their once-profitable joint venture segments became burdens in the transformation. Facing disruptive change, overemphasizing self-research and development slowed their ecological cooperation and adaptation.

Chart by Southern Weekly researchers, data source: 2025 Southern Weekly China Enterprise Innovation Database—2024 annual reports of listed companies

Looking at the top 15 automotive manufacturing revenue rankings nationwide, Chongqing’s two major automakers are both in the top ten. Changan’s R&D intensity is 6.36%, ranking third; Seres’ revenue and net profit have doubled and tripled, respectively. The two are evenly matched. In contrast, Guangzhou’s auto industry relies heavily on GAC alone, with Xpeng still not yet forming a significant presence.

In July 2025, the reorganized China Changan Automobile Group was elevated to the third central enterprise in China’s auto industry, differentiating itself from FAW and Dongfeng through new energy and intelligentization, leading in revenue among the three.

Changan also carries Chongqing’s hopes for autonomous driving, flying cars, and intelligent robots. As its position rises, it will leverage more national resources in cutting-edge fields. By December 2025, the first official license plate for L3 autonomous driving, “Yú AD0001Z,” was issued to Changan.

Under the Halo, “Second Gear Shift” Raises Concerns

Chongqing surpassing Guangzhou is a successful industry shift; but the next industrial revolution is approaching, and Chongqing’s weaknesses are gradually surfacing.

Within Chongqing’s registered companies, the automotive industry is overwhelmingly dominant. Seres and Changan are the only two companies in the city with a market value exceeding 8B yuan. Beyond these, other industries are relatively small in revenue, number of companies, and average company size. Only four major industries have an average R&D intensity above 5%, with the highest in information transmission, software, and IT services, as well as specialized equipment manufacturing, but these tend to be small-scale.

Chongqing’s dependence on the automotive industry far exceeds Guangzhou’s reliance on real estate. Such a structure is also at odds with Chongqing’s own “33618” modern manufacturing industry cluster vision.

Chart by Southern Weekly researchers, data source: 2025 Southern Weekly China Enterprise Innovation Database—2024 annual reports of listed companies

Chart by Southern Weekly researchers, data source: 2025 Southern Weekly China Enterprise Innovation Database—2024 annual reports of listed companies

Two key industries reveal the broader picture. First is pharmaceuticals, one of Chongqing’s six planned billion-yuan industry clusters. The registered companies number nine, but their average revenue is only 300 yuan—less than one-seventh of automotive manufacturing, indicating early-stage development. More concerning, seven of these nine companies saw revenue decline, many by double digits.

Chart by Southern Weekly researchers, data source: 2025 Southern Weekly China Enterprise Innovation Database—2024 annual reports of listed companies

Take ZF Bio, for example. In 2020, it became Chongqing’s first company with a market value exceeding 953.2k yuan. Its valuation once soared above 350 billion yuan. But ZF Bio’s business heavily depended on代理默沙东的HPV疫苗, and as market demand peaked, its revenue halved in 2024, and its market value fell back to 46.9 billion yuan. Meanwhile, with the deepening of national drug procurement policies, generic and common drugs are increasingly caught in price wars, making Chongqing’s pharmaceutical industry’s old path of “heavy imitation, light original research” unsustainable.

In 2024, Zhixiang Jintai’s Sericy achieved a breakthrough with a Class 1 innovative drug. By the end of 2025, Chongqing announced measures to support high-quality development of innovative drugs, aiming to approve 1–3 new drugs annually and reach a total of 10 by 2027. However, the long development cycle and uncertainty of innovative drugs remain challenges.

Second is the artificial intelligence industry. By the end of 2025, Chongqing issued the “Chongqing AI+ Action Plan,” but only three companies are registered in core sectors like information transmission, software, and IT services, with no major firms or even mid-sized companies; the largest revenue giant, NetEase, ranks outside the top 100 nationwide.

As a western city, Chongqing’s innovation foundation remains weak. Its permanent population peaked at 32.13 million in 2022 and has since declined, with population outflow further threatening the key element of industrial iteration—talent.

Chart by Southern Weekly researchers, data source: 2025 Southern Weekly China Enterprise Innovation Database—2024 annual reports of listed companies

The average number of R&D personnel and revenue scale of Chongqing’s registered companies now surpass Guangzhou and Chengdu, but the total number of listed companies ranks only 17th among Chinese cities. As a directly governed municipality, it lags behind many provincial capitals and sub-provincial cities. In terms of the number of billion-yuan market value companies and average R&D intensity, Chongqing ranks at the bottom among listed cities. This conservative approach to innovation could, in the long run, limit Chongqing’s future potential.

Southern Weekly researcher Ding Li

Editor: Huang Ping