BYD Co. reduced its workforce by approximately 100,000 employees in 2025, marking the first major headcount decline for China’s largest private-sector employer, even as vehicle sales rose to a record 4.6 million units.
The Shenzhen-based giant ended the year with roughly 870,000 employees, down from 968,900 at the close of 2024, according to the company’s 2025 annual report filed with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
The headcount cut was made in a year where BYD‘s net profit fell 19% to 32.62 billion yuan ($4.5 billion), the company’s first annual profit decline since 2021 — pressured by what Chairman Wang Chuanfu described in the earnings report as a ‘knockout stage’ of domestic price competition.
The reduction — equivalent to about 10% of BYD Co.‘s peak workforce — was not driven by slowing demand but by automation, with industrial robots displacing production line workers across the company’s manufacturing network, according to the local financial outlet iFeng.
Scale
The scale of BYD‘s workforce expansion over the past half-decade has no parallel in the global auto industry.
At the end of 2018, BYD had just over 220,000 employees, according to its corporate social responsibility (ESG) report that year. By the end of 2019, the figure was 229,154.
The workforce barely moved in 2020, edging down slightly to 224,280 as the pandemic disrupted operations. But starting in 2021, the trajectory turned sharply upward.
BYD added 63,906 employees in 2021, bringing total headcount to 288,186.
The following year, it nearly doubled its workforce, hiring 281,914 people in a single year and reaching 570,100 by the end of 2022 — the year it ceased production of all internal combustion engine vehicles and committed fully to new energy vehicles.
By December 31, 2023, the total had climbed to 703,500.
And by end-2024, BYD had 968,900 employees — making it, by a significant margin, the largest private-sector employer in China, ahead of state-owned enterprises in all but a handful of cases.
Then, in 2025, the trend reversed. The workforce fell to approximately 870,000 employees.
2025 Results
BYD sold 4.6 million new energy vehicles in 2025, an increase of roughly 330,000 units compared to 2024 — enough to cement its position as the world’s largest new energy vehicle manufacturer and to surpass Tesla becoming the world’s top EV maker.
Revenue reached 803.97 billion yuan ($110.1 billion), up 3.46% year over year. However, net profit fell 19% to 32.62 billion yuan ($4.47 billion), the company’s first annual profit decline since 2021, pressured by what Chairman Wang Chuanfu described in the earnings report as a “knockout stage” of domestic price competition.
The iFeng analysis calculates that despite the workforce reduction, total cash paid to employees actually increased in 2025.
Per-employee compensation rose to approximately 150,000 yuan ($20,600) annually, suggesting that the cuts fell disproportionately on lower-paid production roles.
Demand
BYD disclosed on Wednesday that it sold 300,222 new energy vehicles in March — a 57.9% sequential increase from February but a 20.5% decline compared to the same month a year ago.
The figure marks the seventh consecutive month of year-over-year declines in BYD‘s monthly domestic sales.
First-quarter sales totalled 700,463 units, a 30% year-over-year drop and a 47.8% decline from the fourth quarter of 2025, reflecting both seasonal patterns and a demand vacuum created by consumers pulling purchases forward into late 2025.
However, overseas deliveries continued to accelerate.
BYD exported 120,083 vehicles in March, a 65.1% year-over-year increase. First-quarter overseas sales reached 321,165 units, representing a growing share of total revenue.
BYD‘s February exports surpassed its domestic sales for the first time ever.
Overseas Target
The company told analysts earlier this week that it is “highly confident” of reaching 1.5 million overseas sales in 2026 — 15% above the 1.3 million target it had disclosed publicly in January.
BYD added that overseas markets could eventually account for about half of its total business.
EU Expansion Push
BYD‘s European registrations grew across multiple markets during the first quarter of 2026, as EV reported on Wednesday, with the company focusing its expansion efforts on Southern Europe — where its more affordable, urban-focused models have gained traction fastest.
In Spain, BYD registered a record 4,465 vehicles in March, bringing the first-quarter total to 9,430 units and a 16% market share among plug-in brands year-to-date.
In France, registrations more than doubled in March to 1,540 units, bringing the quarterly total to 3,388 — a 108.2% year-over-year increase.
In the Netherlands, the brand posted its strongest month on record in March, with 777 registrations — a 188% year-over-year jump — as the Seal U DM-i plug-in hybrid led the brand’s Dutch sales.
In Norway, where BYD sells exclusively battery-electric models, quarterly registrations reached 827 vehicles, a 29.3% increase from the same period a year ago. In Sweden, it registered 305 vehicles in Q1, a 15% increase.
The company currently offers 13 models across fully electric and plug-in hybrid powertrains in markets such as Spain, while operating 102 official dealerships in the country alone.
BYD has a target of reaching 2,000 sales points across Europe by the end of 2026.
Earlier this year, the automaker began trial production at its first European factory in Hungary, which will allow it to manufacture fully electric vehicles locally and avoid the European Commission tariffs imposed in October 2024 on Chinese-made EV imports.
