Nio‘s ES9 flagship SUV sold 6,690 units at retail in China in October, down 13.2% from September, as the company prepared to hand over the model’s 40,000th unit less than six months after deliveries began.
Nio will deliver the 40,000th ES9 this week, Yang Bo, the company’s Assistant Vice President of User Operations, said on Weibo on Monday. He did not give a date.
Yang made the same kind of announcement on September 21, when he said Nio would deliver the 30,000th ES9 that week. Founder and CEO William Li handed that car over two days later in Suzhou. On August 4, Yang said the 20,000th would come that week, and Nio delivered it four days later.
October’s figure, from China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) data, was the ES9’s lowest since August but its third-best full month, behind June’s 8,595 and September’s 7,706. It was still above the 6,311 sold in July and the 6,474 in August.
The ES9 has averaged about 7,155 units a month at retail in its five full months on sale, including 20,491 in the third quarter.
The Slowest 10,000 Yet
The ES9 has sold 38,884 units at retail in China since deliveries began on May 28, according to CPCA data. Nio’s milestone count tracks handovers rather than retail sales, so the two figures do not match exactly.
The ES9’s retail total is equivalent to 19.4% of the 200,113 vehicles the Nio brand delivered in the first 10 months of 2026, by the company’s count.
Nio handed over the 10,000th ES9 on June 26, the 20,000th on August 8 and the 30,000th on September 23. The first 10,000 took about 30 days, the second 43 and the third 46.
A 40,000th delivery this week would mean the fourth 10,000 took between 47 and 53 days, the longest stretch yet.
The pace has held up better than the milestone gaps suggest. Since the backlog of pre-orders ran out in July, the ES9 has sold between about 6,300 and 7,700 units a month at retail. Li said on September 1 that the model had cleared its last pre-orders in July and that new orders grew in August.
A Third of the Brand
The ES9 accounted for 37.1% of the Nio brand’s 18,039 retail sales in China in October, up from 36.2% in September, its highest share since June’s 39.2%, as the rest of the lineup fell faster.
The ES8, Nio’s other large three-row SUV, sold 8,735 units, down 17.1% from 10,539 in September and its lowest monthly figure of 2026. The ES9 has trailed the ES8 in every full month since launch. Together the two models made up 85.5% of the brand’s retail sales.
The remaining six models sold 2,614 units combined. The ET5T led them with 1,174, followed by the ES6 with 656, the ET5 with 425 and the EC6 with 280. The ET9 sedan sold 74 and the ET7 sold four, its lowest on record. The EC7 sold one.
Nio said on October 31 that its namesake brand delivered 18,125 vehicles in October, down 15.0% from September and its lowest monthly total since February. Nio Inc. delivered 34,246 across its Nio, Onvo and Firefly brands, down 15.2% from a year earlier and its first year-over-year decline since February 2024, as Onvo deliveries fell 51.7% to 8,383.
Nio did not break out the ES9 in its October delivery release. Last month’s announcement highlighted the ES8 instead, saying the model ranked first among large SUVs in China from January to October.
Queue Cleared
The October drop came as the queue for the ES9 cleared. Nio’s configurator in China showed on Monday that all three versions could be collected three to four weeks after an order was locked, on both six-seat layouts.
For the top-of-the-range Horizon Special Edition, priced at 628,000 yuan ($94,300), the configurator added that some configurations take slightly longer.
A week earlier, on November 2, the Horizon showed four to six weeks and the Executive Signature, at 558,000 yuan ($83,800), four to five weeks. The entry Executive Luxury, at 498,000 yuan ($74,800), has shown three to four weeks in every check since launch.
The ES9’s wait now matches those of the ES6 and EC6 SUVs, which also showed three to four weeks on Monday. The five-seat ES8 showed two to four weeks, the ET5 sedan and ET5 Touring two to three weeks, and the ET7 and ET9 sedans four to six weeks.
On September 1, Li said buyers would “need to wait for three months or nearly four months to pick up a new car.” The wait for the two top versions stood at 16 to 17 weeks in early June and 11 to 12 weeks in mid-September. By mid-October, it had fallen to eight to nine weeks.
With the queue gone, monthly sales now track new orders more closely. Nio has never published ES9 order or backlog figures.
Forecasts
Deutsche Bank has forecast 56,000 ES9 sales in 2026. Reaching that would require about 8,560 a month in November and December, a level the model has topped only in June.
Bank of China International expected volume to settle at 3,000 to 4,000 a month once the backlog cleared. The ES9 has stayed well above that range in every full month so far.
The ES9 also weighs on Nio Inc.’s fourth-quarter goal. Li told analysts in September that the company was targeting an average of more than 40,000 deliveries a month in the quarter. October’s total left it about 5,750 short of that pace.
Priced Above 500,000 Yuan
Nio launched the six-seat ES9 on May 27 at 498,000 yuan to 628,000 yuan, or 390,000 yuan ($58,500) to 520,000 yuan ($78,100) under its battery-rental plan.
Li said on the September 1 call that the ES9 had been the best-selling passenger vehicle priced above 500,000 yuan ($75,100) in China in June and July. Management has said the ES8 and ES9 both carry vehicle margins above 20%. The ES9 generated over $600 million in revenue in June alone.
Nio has said 70% of the first 10,000 ES9 buyers were new to the brand. Outside mainland China, the model is delivered in Macao and has gone on sale in Armenia.
Nio will unveil new AI cockpit and assisted-driving products at its NIO IN 2026 technology day in Guangzhou on November 25.
