WeChat is the messaging app most Chinese suppliers use. Email reaches the same sales desk and works from any country.
Nigeria's own trade statistics put the United States at about 78 percent of used-vehicle imports by value and China fourth. What that means for a dealer choosing a lane, and why the two are not substitutes.
Nigeria imported NGN 633.21 billion of used vehicles in the half-year covered by the National Bureau of Statistics' latest foreign trade release, up about 104 percent on the year. Of that, NGN 491.52 billion — roughly 78 percent — came from the United States. China accounted for NGN 16.14 billion, which is about 2.5 percent by value and fourth place behind the US, the UAE and one other source. If you read trade press, this number is surprising. If you stand in Apapa, it is obvious.
They are declared import values at the Nigerian border, in naira, from the NBS quarterly foreign trade statistics — the only official series that separates used vehicles from new ones by source country. That makes them the best available measure of what actually lands and is declared.
They are not a measure of the used-car market. Domestic resale, cars moved in from Benin, and anything taken across a land border without a declaration does not appear here. Nor can you compare them directly with Chinese export figures: China's customs data counts what leaves China, Nigeria's counts what is declared on arrival, and the two differ by an order of magnitude for vehicles. That gap is itself the finding — most China-origin cars reach Nigeria through somewhere that is not a Nigerian port of entry, so they are recorded as coming from Benin or the UAE.
Four things reinforce each other, and none of them is about the quality of the cars:
The catch sits inside that last line. Twice the auction price, on a salvage-branded car, is a lot of margin for a vehicle with a recorded insurance history — and the recorded history is exactly what makes it cheap at the auction and hard to sell at the top of a Lagos forecourt.
It is not a cheaper version of the American lane. It is a different price band served by a different supply chain, and confusing the two is how dealers end up with the wrong container:
| Dimension | From the United States | From China |
|---|---|---|
| Typical unit | Insurance total-loss, lease return, repo — a car already used in America | A Chinese-market car at the end of its first ownership |
| Price band that moves | Broad, but strongest at the top: large petrol and diesel, automatic | Strongest at USD 9,000–20,000 FOB: 1.3–1.8L petrol, plus pickups |
| Landed multiple | about 2× the auction price, all-in | 1.56× to 1.83× the FOB price (see the model table) |
| Door to door | 11–12 weeks | 7–9 weeks to Lagos |
| Steering | Left-hand drive, as built | Left-hand drive, as built — we do not convert |
| Condition history | Salvage brand, accident or flood history visible on the report | Domestic Chinese use; mileage and service history to be verified per unit |
| Certification | SONCAP; VehCAP where the agent requires it | SONCAP; VehCAP where the agent requires it |
| Share of declared used-vehicle imports | about 78% by value (NBS) | about 2.5% by value, fourth (NBS) |
Two rows deserve a warning. Landed multiple: the 2× and the 1.6× are not measuring the same thing — the American figure is auction price to landed, the Chinese figure is FOB to landed, and the auction price of a salvage car is depressed by the salvage brand in a way an FOB price is not. Compare landed-to-landed, not multiple-to-multiple, and the gap narrows considerably on comparable cars. The Chinese side of that comparison is worked through model by model on the landed price table.
Condition history: a salvage brand is not automatically a bad car, but it is a car whose damage is documented by an insurer that had a reason to write it off. Under VehCAP and the SONCAP regime the pre-shipment inspection is stricter than it was, and flooded or structurally repaired vehicles are the first thing that gets refused. If your business plan assumes a steady supply of American salvage, read the certificate page before you book.
They compete for the same naira only in one narrow band: a five-to-eight-year-old mid-size sedan or SUV, where a clean American unit and a Chinese unit with similar mileage can land within a few thousand dollars of each other. Above that band the American lane wins on specification and the Chinese lane is not in the conversation. Below it the Chinese lane wins on price per kilometre and the American lane cannot reach.
That is the honest reading of a 78 percent share: it is not evidence that American cars are better. It is evidence that the Nigerian market's spending is concentrated where American supply is strongest, because the diaspora channel and the auction ecosystem were built first and are self-reinforcing. China's share is small because the lane is newer, not because the cars are wrong for the market.
Three questions decide it, and the first one is not about price:
The United States, by a wide margin. Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics puts used-vehicle imports at about NGN 633 billion in the half-year covered by its latest release, of which NGN 491.5 billion — roughly 78 percent — came from the United States. China was fourth at about NGN 16.1 billion, or 2.5 percent by value.
On landed cost per comparable car, usually China — a Chinese unit lands at 1.56 to 1.83 times its FOB price, while an American salvage unit typically lands at about twice its auction price. But the two are rarely comparable cars: the American unit is usually larger, automatic and higher specification. Compare landed-to-landed on the same model and year, not multiple-to-multiple.
Three structural reasons rather than a quality judgement: a established diaspora network that buys at auction for buyers at home, an auction system — Copart and IAAI — that sells condition-reported vehicles on a schedule, and a supply of large automatic petrol and diesel cars that matches what the top of the Nigerian market wants. Eleven to twelve weeks door to door is well understood by everyone in the chain.
About 2.5 percent by declared value, fourth behind the United States, the UAE and one other source, on NBS figures. A much-quoted 13 percent figure comes from Chinese export statistics, which count vehicles leaving China rather than vehicles declared on arrival in Nigeria. Most China-origin units reach Nigeria through Benin or the UAE, so they are recorded against those countries instead.
It is possible, and it is the riskiest thing on this page. A salvage brand means an insurer wrote the vehicle off, and flooded or structurally repaired cars are precisely what the pre-shipment inspection under SONCAP and VehCAP refuses. Verify the damage type from the auction report before you bid, confirm the current inspection position with your agent in writing, and price the risk of a refused unit into the bid rather than discovering it at Apapa.
Tell us the models your customers ask for and the band you sell in. We will come back with what those models cost at FOB Nansha and what they land at in Lagos, so you can put the two lanes side by side on your own numbers rather than on a share statistic.
Send a sourcing requestReady to pick a vehicle? See what is on the water and ready to book in the live stock list, or compare engines, years and body types across the full model list we can source for you.
This page gives you the vehicle and the tax rate. The full landed-cost breakdown shows FOB, freight, insurance, duty and clearing, line by line.