Li Auto signed dealership partnerships in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Saturday, marking the second wave of the Chinese carmaker’s international expansion.
The Beijing-headquartered company hosted on Saturday a signing ceremony at its headquarters with the UAE’s Al Fahim Motors and Saudi Arabia’s Mohamed Yousuf Naghi Motors.
The two distributors will import Li Auto‘s extended-range electric vehicle L-series — the company’s flagship product line — into the two markets.
Li Auto simultaneously announced concrete market entry plans in Cambodia, Laos, Macau, and Myanmar, with launches across all four targeted for May.
Local distribution partners include SDB in Cambodia, Hongyun in Laos, Hongyue Group in Macau, and PMPG EV in Myanmar.
The company has officialy expanded to Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Africa in the final quarter of 2025.
Middle East as the Benchmark
The Middle East entry is the larger strategic move, with Li Auto framing the UAE and Saudi Arabia as anchor markets for premium positioning.
“The UAE and Saudi Arabia are the benchmark markets for innovation and growth in the Middle East,” said Zuomin Wu, Head of International Business at Li Auto, during the signing ceremony.
Al Fahim Motors, which signed for the UAE distribution, framed the deal as a long-term sustainability play.
The L-series — comprising the L6, L7, L8, and L9 — uses Li Auto‘s extended-range hybrid technology, which combines a battery-electric drivetrain with a small petrol engine acting as a generator.
The architecture provides combined ranges exceeding 1,000 kilometers per fill-up and addresses the limited high-power charging infrastructure that has slowed pure-electric adoption in much of the Middle East.
L9 Livis Beijing Debut
The public debut of Li Auto‘s new flagship, the Li L9 Livis, took place on Friday, at the opening day of the Beijing Auto Show.
The company said that the L9 Livis will officially launch on May 15, with deliveries beginning the same day.
Pre-sales opened in February at 559,800 yuan ($80,700), positioning the model roughly 100,000 yuan above the current top-trim L9 Ultra.
The L9 Livis carries Li Auto‘s in-house developed M100 chip — its first proprietary 5-nanometer automotive silicon — alongside a 360-degree LiDAR array, 800-volt fully active suspension, and a fully drive-by-wire chassis with steer-by-wire and four-wheel steering.
Europe Next
Another significant announcement was Li Auto‘s confirmation of its first appearance at a major European auto show.
Donghui Ma, Executive Director and President of Li Auto, said the company will participate in the Paris Motor Show scheduled for October — its debut at a top-tier European motor show.
“Moving forward, we will enter more markets, including Europe and broader Southeast Asia,” Ma said during the international press session following the signing ceremony.
The Paris debut continues a series of institutional moves Li Auto has made to prepare its European entry. The company joined the China Chamber of Commerce to the EU in February, expanding its Brussels-based institutional presence ahead of any commercial launch on the continent.
Li Auto currently maintains a cautious stance on Europe despite having already established an R&D center in Munich, Germany.
A Late Entrant in the China-to-Global Race
Li Auto is entering international markets later than most of its Chinese peers.
The carmaker has remained almost entirely domestic since starting volume production in November 2019.
The catch-up move follows Li Auto‘s first-ever annual sales decline in 2025, when full-year deliveries fell 18.8% to 406,343 vehicles compared with 2024.
Founder, Chairman and CEO Li Xiang announced a 20% growth target for 2026 on the Q4 earnings call last month, with international expansion explicitly cited as one of the levers for hitting roughly 490,000 deliveries this year.
The Q1 2026 results showed early signs of stabilization.
The company delivered 95,142 vehicles in the first three months of the year, exceeding the upper end of its guidance, and posted March deliveries of 41,053 units after the Li i6 BEV’s production bottleneck was resolved.
Stock Performance
Li Auto‘s US-listed shares closed at $18.13 on Friday, down 2.8% on the day.
The stock is up 7.1% year-to-date but down 25.4% over the past twelve months.
The Nasdaq-listed shares trade at a market cap of $19.6 billion. The company will hold its 2026 Annual General Meeting on May 29 in Beijing.
