BYD has entered North Macedonia, which it called its 38th market in Europe, opening a store in Skopje through a new importer as the Chinese carmaker pushes deeper into the Balkans.
The company announced the move on Monday and named Evolution-Auto as its importer for the country. It is the fourth European market BYD is known to have opened this year, after Slovenia, Montenegro and Bulgaria in March.
BYD is starting with seven models in North Macedonia, spanning fully electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.
The electric Dolphin Surf city model sits at the entry point, alongside the Sealion 7 SUV and the Seal sedan. The Seal U DM-i, Atto 2 DM-i and Seal 6 DM-i plug-in hybrids and the Atto 3 Evo complete the range.
BYD said its mission was to make sustainable technology accessible to as many people as possible, a line it attributed to Executive Vice President Stella Li.
“Every new market in Europe matters,” the company said.
The official launch took place on September 30, and a pop-up showroom opened in a shopping centre in central Skopje on Monday.
BYD has not published prices for the market in its announcement.
North Macedonia is a small market, with 497 new vehicles registered in August, according to figures compiled by Best Selling Cars Blog.
The same data showed the BYD Atto 2 as the country’s best-selling model that month, before the official launch.
Nine Markets in Under a Year
The count of 38 compares with the 29 European markets BYD said it was present in last November.
That implies nine additions in less than a year on the company’s own figures, although BYD has not published a list.
Three of this year’s entries are known.
BYD entered Slovenia on March 5 through distributor CG Evolution Auto, with a first showroom in Ljubljana and a range of four electric cars and five plug-in hybrids.
Montenegro followed on March 11. BYD then launched in Bulgaria on March 26 at an event in Sofia, with prices starting at €19,400 ($21,700).
Andorra is due next, after BYD said in September that partner Pyrénées Motors would open its first dealership there within two months.
The company also said last November that it aimed to double its European network to 2,000 outlets in 2026.
European Sales
The wider footprint has come with a sharp rise in sales.
BYD registered 234,099 vehicles across the European Union, the European Free Trade Association and the UK between January and August, up 144.1% from 95,898 a year earlier, data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) shows.
Its share of that market rose to 2.5% from 1.1%.
That left BYD 42,312 units ahead of Tesla and 3,809 ahead of SAIC Motor, the owner of MG.
In the EU alone, BYD registered 177,752 vehicles, up 163.0%, which put it ahead of Ford in the bloc.
The comparison with Tesla comes with a caveat, because ACEA counts every powertrain and a large part of BYD’s volume is plug-in hybrid.
In August, BYD’s share more than doubled to 3.1% on 26,007 registrations.
North Macedonia is not part of the ACEA region, so sales there will not appear in those figures.
Most of the volume still comes from western Europe, where the UK was BYD’s largest market in the first half with 37,795 registrations and Germany was second on 26,264.
Hybrids Lead the Range
The North Macedonian line-up mirrors the shift in BYD’s European range toward plug-in hybrids.
The Atto 2 DM-i arrived in Europe in February and became BYD’s best-seller in Spain in its first month.
The Dolphin G DM-i, the first BYD developed specifically for European buyers, made its debut in Berlin in June and is due to reach customers this autumn from €28,990 ($32,500) in Germany.
BYD’s China-built EVs pay a 17% countervailing duty in the EU on top of the standard 10% tariff, while its plug-in hybrids pay only the 10%.
That gap is under pressure, after Germany’s Vice Chancellor called for EU tariffs on Chinese hybrids.
Local Production Runs Late
BYD’s answer to tariffs is to build in Europe, but its first plant is behind schedule.
The factory in Szeged, Hungary, began trial production on January 29 and is due to start vehicle assembly in the fourth quarter, about a year later than first planned.
A second plant announced for Turkey in 2024 is on hold.
“Over the longer term, we will need three assembly plants and one battery plant,” Special Adviser for Europe Alfredo Altavilla said last month.
The Hungarian project also faces scrutiny from the country’s new government.
Péter Szijjártó, the former Foreign Minister who joined BYD as an executive in July, appeared before parliament’s National Security Committee on Monday to answer questions about his dealings with the company while in office.
He told reporters afterwards that the subsidies awarded for the plant “have remained well within the framework of the usual subsidies for investments of this magnitude.”
