Zeekr has begun volume shipments of its 9X flagship SUV to the United Arab Emirates. The shipment comes about three months after Geely‘s chief executive said exports to the Middle East would start in June.
A car carrier loaded with the SUVs left the Jiangyin terminal of Fuzhou Port, in southeastern China, on Tuesday, the premium carmaker said.
Zeekr did not say how many vehicles were on board.
Customer deliveries in the UAE are due to begin in October, according to Zeekr’s UAE website. New bookings will be delivered from December onward.
The shipment is the first large-scale export of the 9X, which Zeekr launched in China in late September 2025 as its first hybrid.
The Timeline
Gan Jiayue, CEO of Geely Auto Group, set out the rollout on the company’s first-quarter earnings call in late April. He said the 9X would enter the Middle East first, in June, followed by Central Asia in the third quarter and Europe in the fourth, according to Cailian Press.
Gan said the 8X, Zeekr’s second hybrid, would follow overseas from the fourth quarter.
By June the UAE date had already moved. AWR Automotive, Zeekr’s local distributor, previewed the 9X at an owner event at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. It opened pre-bookings and listed customer deliveries from October.
The pre-booking fee is AED 10,000 ($2,700).
Zeekr said on September 1 that the 9X would officially go overseas that month. It said the SUV would enter the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe gradually from September, and that UAE pre-orders had passed 500.
In early September, Zeekr and AWR Automotive showed the 9X at the reopening of their redesigned Dubai showroom on Sheikh Zayed Road, with the UAE launch scheduled for October.
Zhao Chunlin, the Zeekr VP in charge of manufacturing, said the SUV had drawn more than 700 orders during the UAE pre-order period.
Central Asia
The third quarter ends next week. Zeekr has not said whether any 9X has been delivered in Central Asia, the second market on Gan’s schedule.
Zeekr dealers in Uzbekistan were already taking orders for the 9X in June while in Kazakhstan, Zeekr has had an official distributor since 2023.
The region has also shown how China-market cars are policed once they leave the country.
In July, a China-registered 9X lost its navigation, glove box access and electronic fuel filler release for more than 30 hours after its owner crossed into Kazakhstan on an overland trip.
“Upon verification, the vehicle’s location was detected in an overseas region, which triggered the built-in security protection mechanism,” a Zeekr spokesperson told National Business Daily.
The company described the system as a standard measure against theft and smuggling. After a public backlash, it added a passcode generator to its app on July 26 and promised a software update that would let owners switch the lockout off.
The Price
Three versions are listed in the UAE. The dual-motor Ultra, rated at 885 horsepower, costs AED 369,900 ($100,700).
The tri-motor Hyper, rated at 1,380 horsepower, costs AED 409,900 ($111,600). The Obsidian, which shares the Hyper’s powertrain, costs AED 439,900 ($119,800).
In China, the same three trims cost 485,900 yuan ($72,600), 559,900 yuan ($83,600) and 599,900 yuan ($89,600). The range starts at 465,900 yuan ($69,600) for a Max trim that is not offered in the UAE.
At current exchange rates, the UAE Ultra costs about 674,500 yuan, 38.8% above its Chinese equivalent. The Hyper converts to about 747,400 yuan, 33.5% above, and the Obsidian to about 802,100 yuan, 33.7% above.
Chinese media reports on Tuesday put the UAE price above 800,000 yuan. That figure applies only to the Obsidian.
The UAE website lists a vehicle warranty of five years or 150,000 kilometers and a battery warranty of eight years or 160,000 kilometers.
Official stock will compete with cars that arrived first. DubiCars carried five listings for new 2026-model 9X units in the UAE on Tuesday, priced from AED 282,000 ($76,800) to AED 499,000 ($135,900).
Three of the five are listed as Chinese-specification cars. One Chinese-spec Hyper is advertised at AED 330,000 ($89,900), 19.5% below the official Hyper.
Europe, the third stop on Gan’s schedule, is priced higher still.
Zeekr unveiled the European 9X in July in a single six-seat Ultra trim, with two motors, 660 kilowatts of output and a 55.1-kilowatt-hour battery.
German prices, announced this month, start at €119,500 ($136,900). The Black Line version costs €126,500 ($144,900).
The German Ultra is 88.6% more expensive than China’s Ultra at current exchange rates, before accounting for value-added tax and import duties, which differ by market.
Zeekr puts German deliveries between December 2026 and the first quarter of 2027, so the fourth-quarter target could run into next year.
Demand at Home
The 9X opened strongly in China. Lin Jie, Senior Vice President of Geely Auto Group, told National Business Daily at the September 2025 launch that firm orders passed 10,000 within 13 minutes, with nearly 80,000 refundable reservations.
The export program starts as domestic volumes have come down from their spring peak.
The 9X delivered 10,191 units in March, 8,441 in May and 6,382 in June, according to China Passenger Car Association data. The June figure was down 24.4% from May, and the first half closed at 46,869 units.
Zeekr has said cumulative 9X deliveries passed 61,965 by June.
The six-seat version delivered close to 4,000 units in July, before deliveries of the five-seat version began.
The newspaper also cited unnamed sources as saying overseas orders were expected to take about half of the 9X’s production capacity. Zeekr has not confirmed that figure.
The company launched the five-seat 9X on July 28 at a limited-time starting price of 451,900 yuan ($67,500).
Zeekr does not publish model-level figures in its monthly release. Its Sept. 1 statement described the 9X as the best-selling model of any type above 500,000 yuan this year.
The brand as a whole delivered a record 36,981 vehicles in August. That took its eight-month total to 251,188, or 83.7% of its 300,000-unit target for 2026.
Geely’s Export Push
The 9X joins a UAE lineup that Zeekr’s local website lists as the 001, X, 7X, 009 and 8X.
Geely has raised its 2026 export target to 920,000 vehicles from 640,000.
In Europe, Zeekr has continued adding markets. This month it entered Poland and Austria, after signing a distribution dealfor a Polish launch in the fourth quarter.
Zeekr completed its merger with Geely in December 2025 and is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong-listed carmaker.
