BYD registered 45,100 vehicles from March 31 to April 6, a decline of 25.3% from the 60,400 units recorded in the previous week. China observed a three-day holiday from April 4 to 6 for the Ching Ming Festival, which impacted both production and deliveries in the auto industry.
The Group remains the best-selling new energy vehicle (NEV) maker in China, having sold about 668,500 vehicles in the country year to date, while Tesla — which only sells battery electric vehicles (BEV) — follows with 137,600 units so far.
Xiaomi registered 5,100 vehicle sales last week (a 34.6% drop from 7,800), marking the first significant shift in weekly registrations since early February, when the Chinese New Year holiday temporarily slowed the industry.
Tesla, which opts to focus its GigaShanghai production on exports at the beginning of each quarter, saw the steepest drop among all automakers, with sales plunging 82.5% from 20,600 units at the end of March to just 3,600 last week.
March Deliveries + Outlook
BYD sold 377,420 vehicles in March, a 25% year over year increase and a new record for the NEV maker. The brand delivered 986,098 vehicles in the first quarter — including over 400,000 fully electric models.
The company produced a total of 395,091 NEVs in March, a 72.6% increase from the same period in the previous year. This included 388,877 passenger vehicles, split between 187,599 battery electric vehicles (BEV) and 201,278 plug-in hybrids (PHEV).
The company set a global goal of 5.5 million vehicle sales for this year, including 800,000 units overseas. BYD stated on Tuesday expects its first quarter’s net profit to reach 8.5 to 10 billion yuan, up from 86% to 118% year over year.
BYD Expansion
BYD set sales records in Europe in March, surging 754% year over year in the UK, where the company launched in 2023. The brand’s sales also soared 403% in Germany, where it entered in later 2022.
The automaker is on track to become the first Chinese company to build its vehicles in Europe, with its first assembly plant in Hungary set to open in October and another one expected to start production in Turkey next March.
With local production of fully electric vehicles in Europe, the Chinese carmaker will be able to avoid the tariffs on imported EVs announced by the European Union late last year.
The company is expanding to Switzerland, as reported last week, introducing three models: the Seal, Sealion 7 and Seal U DM-i. BYD also announced on Monday that it entered the Nigerian market on March 28, with the Yuan Plus and Dolphin models.
