BYD quickens overseas expansion of showrooms to offset flat EV sales growth in mainland China
- BYD is actively seeking to tap overseas markets and its global expansion will pick up, according to an exchange filing
- The carmaker’s sales in mainland China have stagnated in the past two months at about 302,000 units
“BYD is actively seeking to tap the overseas markets, banking on both exports and local production,” the company said in a filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Monday. “Our global expansion pace will pick up.”
The world’s largest EV maker has sold some 200,000 pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles outside mainland China to date, about 3.3 per cent of its total deliveries, it said.
BYD currently operates 170 showrooms across Europe, an increase of 30 compared with September, according to the filing, which was published in a question-and-answer format to clarify some of the company’s tactics and operations. The carmaker has a presence in 58 overseas markets, including Germany, Japan and Australia.
BYD’s ramped-up effort to increase overseas sales is in line with Beijing’s goal of transforming itself into an EV powerhouse, with the major home-grown players grasping core technologies and winning a big market share around the globe.
Under the Made in China 2025 industrial strategy, Beijing wants the country’s top two EV makers to generate 10 per cent of their sales overseas by 2025. Though authorities have not named the two companies, analysts believe BYD is one of the two because of its large production and sales volume.