GWM has fired a warning shot at the established dual-cab segment, aiming to become a top-five player in one of Australia’s most popular new car segments.

The Chinese manufacturer currently sits seventh in the hotly-contested segment, its Cannon and Cannon Alpha siblings amassing 7766 sales so far in 2026.

That’s not that far off the Mazda BT-50 in sixth place which has accumulated 7857 sales across both 4×4 and 4×2 platforms. However, the leap to BYD in fifth place is much larger, the Shark 6 amassing 12,094 to the end of August.

2

But that hasn’t deterred GWM from its lofty ambitions, the Chinese brand’s Australian boss, John Kett, telling assembled media including Which Car by Wheels that “we need to be a top five player in the ute segment. You have to get to 1500 a month to get anywhere close to that.”

Kett outlined the company’s expanding portfolio of diesel and plug-in hybrid petrol powertrains as key to the planned growth.

“When we think about the portfolio we have, Cannon Alpha three-litre diesel, Cannon 2.4-litre diesel, Cannon Alpha Hi4-T and now Cannon Hi4-T, we’ve got to believe that we’ve covered all our bases across all fuel types, all capabilities, all user needs.”

1

GWM has gone on the launch offensive this week, with two new variants joining its dual-cab line-up spearheaded by the new Cannon Alpha powered by a 170/620Nm 3.0-litre turbo-diesel. GWM also took the covers off the Cannon Hi4-T at this week’s Everything Electric motor show. It’s powered by a 2.0-litre petrol engine married to GWM’s plug-in hybrid system for combined outputs of 310kW and 750Nm and electric-only driving range of 115km (NEDC).

“If we’re not hitting 1500 utes by sometime in the middle to late of next year, then quite frankly we’ll be doing what we typically do is self-reflecting on what we need to do better,” Kett added.

Kett expects the split between Cannon and the dimensionally larger Cannon Alpha to sit at around 50:50 with a similar split between diesel and plug-in hybrid powertrains.