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BYD just took its first hit in 19 months. The automaker’s September sales dropped 5.5% year-on-year, with just over 396,000 cars sold, according to its Hong Kong stock filing on Wednesday.
This is the first year-on-year decline since the streak began, and it’s happening while China’s domestic demand weakens and government pressure ramps up against destructive price slashing.
Analysts now say BYD has basically thrown in the towel on the Chinese market, at least for now.
“BYD really doesn’t care about the domestic market any more,” said Feng Xiao, co-head of China industrial research at CLSA. He expects more than half of BYD’s profits to come from exports next year, as rather than trigger another price fight, Feng said BYD chose to “lie down in China.”.
BYD cuts targets, focuses abroad
BYD has lowered its 2024 sales target from 5.5 million to 4.6 million units, a massive cut. Still, Li Yunfei, the company’s head of marketing, told local media the move was about keeping growth “healthy” and “sustainable.”
Earlier this year in May, BYD launched a big discount push, but that backfired. The government hit back with a crackdown on the years-long EV price war, warning automakers to stop destroying profit margins.
Since then, BYD and others have had to back off on price slashing and ensure they’re paying suppliers on time. That’s new territory for companies used to using discounts to gain ground.
There’s another problem: buyers in China seem bored with the same logo, the same look, and the same cars. “The products get old and established . . . buyers are getting bored of the BYD logo and BYD looks,” Feng said. That’s a bad sign in a market flooded with flashy alternatives.
But it’s not all ugly. BYD is crushing it overseas. In Europe and the UK, it moved 96,000 vehicles between January and August, almost four times what it sold last year. By August, its market share hit 1.4%, according to data from Acea, a European car industry body.
Stella Li, who oversees international operations at BYD, shrugged off the local dip. “We don’t worry too much. We just invest more on research and development,” she said Wednesday. BYD’s exports of battery EVs and plug-in hybrids more than doubled, hitting 700,000 units in the first nine months of 2025.
There’s also the fact that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which had backed BYD since 2008, finally sold off its entire stake this year after years of gradually exiting, as Cryptopolitan reported.
Even though BYD’s January to September sales rose 18% to 3.2 million vehicles, that number lags badly behind rival Geely, which reported a 114% surge in EV and hybrid sales during the same period. So yeah, BYD is still growing, but the shine’s wearing off now.
Today, BYD offers a lineup of automobiles at various price points, from a city hatchback starting at around 55,800 yuan ($7,800) to a 1.7 million-yuan electric sports car.
BYD’s stock is, however, faring better than Tesla’s. The US EV maker’s securities have taken a hit this year, in part after Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk waded into politics, alienating both existing and prospective customers.
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