Nio registered 6,474 ES9 flagship SUVs in China in August, up 2.6% from July’s 6,311, according to China Passenger Car Association data released on Tuesday. Five units were exported, bringing the monthly total to 6,479.
The gain ends the model’s only decline.
The ES9 registered 3,108 in the four days after deliveries began on May 28, 8,595 in June and 6,311 in July. Cumulative domestic registrations stand at 24,488 in three months and four days, with nine exports on top.
The ES9 was 30.6% of the Nio brand’s 21,174 August deliveries. With the ES8’s 10,999 it made up 82.5% of the brand, the same concentration as July’s 83%.
The Shape of the Month
The 20,000th ES9 was handed over on August 8, 73 days after the first, as EV reported.
Founder and CEO William Li told analysts on the second-quarter call on September 1 that order intake had risen.
“Regarding our flagship executive SUV ES9, it also sees strong demand since its launch, especially for the Horizon Edition and the Signature Edition,” he said. “If we look at the sales number of the ES9 in August and July, I think in July, we were still consuming some preorders. But if we are making a comparison between the incremental orders in July and August, we actually have seen a growth from July to August. So we are also confident in the continuous popularity and also demand for the ES9.”
Customers ordering now “will need to wait for three months or nearly four months to pick up a new car,” he said, as EV reported.
Nio’s configurator put the wait at 13 to 14 weeks that day for the Horizon Special Edition and the Executive Signature.
A check of the app on Tuesday showed 12 to 13 weeks from configuration lock for both trims, in either the centre-console or walk-through six-seat layout, the first shortening since August 8 and down from 16 to 17 weeks in June.
The entry Executive Premier still shows three to four weeks.
The split follows the hardware.
The 628,000-yuan ($93,600) Horizon Special Edition and 558,000-yuan ($83,100) Executive Signature carry the Tianxing fully active suspension, steer-by-wire, rear-wheel steering and 22-inch wheels, with the Horizon adding a two-tone body and the Signature the LC privacy-dimming glass and NOMI Mate 3.0.
The 498,000-yuan Executive Premier rides on dual-chamber air springs with external-valve CDC dampers and keeps the steer-by-wire, rear steering, twin 16-inch executive screens and zero-gravity second row.
There is a second reason for August’s orders.
Nio’s app tells buyers that orders locked by September 30 qualify for the launch benefits: a zero-deposit finance plan with two of its five years interest-free, the Feihang executive seat package, a delivery gift box and five years of free NOP+ assisted driving.
The package leaves the sticker price untouched, which is how Nio held its vehicle margin at 18.5% in the second quarter, and gives buyers a reason to lock orders this month.
Against the Forecasts
Deutsche Bank estimated non-cancellable orders above 25,000 in June, raised its 2026 forecast to 56,000, and put the backlog above 40,000 by August 1, as EV reported.
Reaching 56,000 from 24,497 needs 31,503 in four months, or about 7,900 a month. August ran 1,400 short of that.
Bank of China International had expected the model to settle at 3,000 to 4,000 a month once the backlog cleared. August was more than half again above the top of that range for a third consecutive month.
Who Is Buying
“Around three quarters of the ES9 users are actually from non-existing Nio users, from users outside of the Nio user community,” Li said on the September 1 call.
That updates the 70% of the first 10,000 buyers that user-operations head Yang Bo cited in late June, and follows Li’s May remark that orders from outside the community were running at more than 1.5 times the pace of the 2025 ES8 launch.
Mid and high trims took about three-quarters of orders in the first 72 hours and have dominated since.
The brand’s average transaction price reached 443,000 yuan in June and 434,600 yuan in July, and President Qin Lihong has said the ES9 will deliver the highest gross profit of any Nio SUV.
The ES9 launched at 498,000 yuan for the Executive Premier, 558,000 yuan for the Executive Signature and 628,000 yuan for the Horizon Special Edition, with the battery, or 390,000, 450,000 and 520,000 yuan on the battery-rental plan, 30,000 yuan below the April presale.
Nio positioned it against the Aito M9, Zeekr 9X, Li L9 and BMW X5 rather than the Maybach territory the ET9 targeted, and said with its results that the model ranked first among passenger vehicles priced above 500,000 yuan in June and July.
Exports
Four ES9s left China in July and five in August.
Nio has announced no export programme for the model, and its Uzbekistan store, the only new market opened this year, lists the ET9, EL8, EL6 and ET5 rather than the ES9.
The nine cars appear to be sampling units, not customer deliveries.
