BYD sold 463,561 new energy vehicles in September, up 17.0% from a year earlier and its highest monthly total of 2026, as exports more than doubled and sales of its fully electric vehicles hit a record.
The total rose 5.3% from August, the company said in a voluntary filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Thursday.
It was BYD’s fifth consecutive month of year-on-year growth and its seventh straight month-on-month increase.
New energy vehicle exports reached 180,700 units, according to the filing, up 153.6% from the 71,256 BYD reported for September 2025.
Sales in China, calculated as the group total minus exports, fell 13.0% to 282,861.
Q3 Returns to Growth
BYD sold 1,323,065 vehicles in the third quarter, up 18.7% from 1,114,192 a year earlier and 19.4% above the second quarter.
It was the company’s first year-on-year quarterly increase since the second quarter of 2025, after four consecutive quarterly declines ranging from 1.8% to 30.0%.
The rebound follows BYD’s first quarterly profit increase in more than a year, reported in August, when export growth offset a shrinking business at home.
Fully Electric Cars Hit a Record
Passenger vehicle sales rose 16.2% to 456,713.
Fully electric passenger cars accounted for 273,143 of them, up 33.2% from a year earlier and the highest monthly figure in BYD’s filings, 6.6% above the previous high of 256,230 set in August.
Plug-in hybrid sales fell 2.4% to 183,570, ending four consecutive months of year-on-year growth, although they rose 3.6% from August.
Fully electric models made up 59.8% of BYD’s passenger sales, up from 52.2% a year earlier.
In the first nine months, battery-electric sales rose 1.5% to 1,629,957, while plug-in hybrid sales fell 10.2% to 1,448,587.
By brand, the BYD-badged Dynasty and Ocean ranges sold 394,945 vehicles, up 11.0%, according to brand figures BYD released alongside the filing.
Fang Cheng Bao rose 79.0% to 43,181, and Denza 46.7% to 18,198.
Sales of the Yangwang luxury brand fell 48.7% to 389.
Commercial vehicle sales more than doubled to 6,848, including 791 buses, up from 375.
Exports Ease
September’s exports were 4.6% below August’s record of 189,466. Exports accounted for 39.0% of BYD’s sales in the month, down from 43.0% in August but up from 18.0% a year earlier.
BYD separately said overseas sales of its passenger cars and pickups reached 179,877, up 153.9%.
Exports in the first nine months totalled 1,342,960, up 92.7% from 697,072 a year earlier and already above BYD’s full-year 2025 total of about 1.05 million.
BYD raised its 2026 overseas sales target to 1.9 million to 2 million vehicles after its first-half results, according to a Deutsche Bank note on the company’s investor call.
Reaching 1.9 million would require average exports of about 185,700 a month from October to December, slightly above September’s level, while 2 million would need about 219,000.
Management told investors that shipping capacity had constrained overseas sales this year, and that its Hungarian plant, its first passenger car factory in Europe, was expected to start assembly in November or December, Deutsche Bank said.
The company’s Xi’an base is hiring several thousand workers as export orders rise.
The export push comes as the European Union asks China to limit hybrid shipments to Europe, a segment that made up 40.2% of BYD’s passenger sales in September.
Domestic Sales
Domestic sales of 282,861 were down 13.0% from 325,014 a year earlier, though up 12.8% from August’s 250,827.
In the first nine months, BYD’s sales in China fell 30.2% to about 1.79 million, while exports nearly doubled.
Gap to the Annual Target
BYD’s sales in the first nine months totalled 3,131,576, down 3.9% from a year earlier, narrowing from a 6.8% decline through August.
Management guided investors in May to 5.0 million to 5.5 million sales for 2026, according to a JPMorgan note at the time.
Reaching 5 million, the bottom of that range, would require average monthly sales of about 622,800 from October to December, well above BYD’s all-time monthly record of 514,809, set in December 2024.
The top of the range would require about 789,500 a month.
Matching 2025’s total of 4,602,436 would require about 490,300 a month, 5.8% above September’s level.
BYD built 463,864 vehicles in September, up 14.4% from a year earlier, while production in the first nine months fell 2.3% to 3,138,946.
The company unveiled a new Seal 07 on Monday, less than seven months after the current model went on sale.
