Smart Car OTA Industry Report, 2025-2026

Automotive OTA Research: In the Era of Mandatory Standards, OTA Transforms from a Function Channel to a New Stage of Full Lifecycle Management

Driven by the development and promotion of AI and software-defined vehicle, the installation volume of OTA (Over-the-Air) functions in China's automobiles has maintained a rapid growth trend. According to ResearchInChina Database, from January to October 2025, the installation volume of OTA functions in China's passenger cars reached 14.224 million units, a year-on-year increase of 11.3%. The OTA function installation rate stood at 76.2%, a year-on-year increase of 4.2 percentage points. It is expected that by 2030, the OTA installation rate of China's passenger cars will exceed 95%, with the installation volume reaching approximately 24.982 million units.

Automotive OTA industry mainly adopts two layout modes: third-party supply and OEM independent R&D, with third-party OTA enterprises still dominating the supply market. From January to October 2025, in the market share of third-party OTA suppliers for China's passenger cars, ABUP ranked first with a 37% share, followed by Harman with approximately 13.2%. Enterprises such as ECARX, Desay SV, Huawei, and Carota are also experiencing continuous growth in market share, collectively driving the continuous upgrading of automotive OTA industry.

Two Standards to Be Implemented Simultaneously in 2026, Marking the Official Entry of Automotive OTA into the Era of Mandatory Standards

Starting from January 1, 2026, the national mandatory standard General Technical Requirements for Software Update of Vehicles and the recommended standard Requirements of Implementation of Motor Vehicle Products Recall Based on Over-the-Air Update Technology will be officially implemented, marking the official entry of China's automotive OTA into the era of mandatory standards.

In addition, in February and August 2025, China successively issued the Notice on Further Strengthening the Administration of Access, Recall, and Software Over-the-Air Updates of Intelligent Connected Vehicle Products and the Notice on Strengthening the Supervision and Administration of Recall and Production Consistency of Intelligent Connected New Energy Vehicle Products and Regulating Publicity (Draft for Comments), which have established a more rigorous and detailed policy framework covering product access, recall management, OTA filing, and classified supervision.

With the implementation of mandatory standards and the deepening of regulatory policies, software security is no longer an option for OEMs but an unavoidable must-answer question for the healthy development of intelligent connected vehicles. China's automobile industry is embracing a new stage of full-link digital supervision with a more systematic and strict standard system.

Automotive OTA Evolves Towards Full Software Lifecycle Management

Faced with the stringent requirements of the new national standards in management, technology, processes, and other dimensions, automobile software security has become a core proposition throughout the entire lifecycle. Automotive OTA is no longer a free operation of OEMs but a key link connecting the full-chain data of product access - mass production and sales - software upgrades - defect recalls and incorporated into the whole lifecycle supervision of vehicles. Building an automobile software full lifecycle management system has become an essential element for OEMs. To this end, suppliers such as ABUP, Excelfore, Desay SV, Bosch ETAS, and Aptiv are actively deploying OTA software full lifecycle solution products to meet the rapidly developing market demand.

OTA Application Experience Continuously Improves with the Assistance of New Automotive OTA Technologies

With the development of automobile intelligence, the continuous improvement of automotive architecture, hardware, communication networks, and other configurations, as well as the continuous breakthrough and application of various new OTA technologies, OTA performance of new vehicle models is also constantly improving, specifically reflected in upgrade speed, upgrade fault protection, and other aspects.

For example, the Xiaomi YU7 launched in 2025 is equipped with the 3rd Generation Snapdragon 8 chip and innovatively adopts extreme speed streaming upgrade technology to achieve faster intelligent OTA upgrades, with the full-vehicle full-package upgrade completed in 15 minutes.

In July 2025, Li Auto launched the ADAS domain streaming upgrade technology based on NVIDIA Thor-U chip. With the core concept of unconscious evolution, the automotive OTA can complete intelligent evolution in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, bringing a revolution in user experience.

Improvement of OEM OTA user experience is inseparable from the continuous progress of OTA technology in safety, reliability, and efficiency. From the initial A/B partitioning and differential algorithms to the recent application of streaming upgrades, parallel upgrades, and other technologies in vehicles, it is also the result of continuous technological R&D and innovation by OTA suppliers.

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