- BYD sold 315,600 cars globally in July, behind Toyota and Volkswagen.
- According to its August earnings call, 2/3 of its sales are hybrid vehicles.
- Despite a great performance in July, BYD is only in 8th place in overall sales for the year so far.
It feels like every other week BYD makes an announcement about entering yet another country's car market. Whether it’s Trinidad and Tobago or South Korea, the Chinese brand’s EV, Hybrid and PHEV products are on sale practically everywhere now. Well, everywhere except the United States. It seems to be paying off; this past July, BYD was the third best-selling brand in the world.
The top two brands are Toyota (651,200) and Volkswagen (346,200) but according to reporting from Carnewschina (via Fast Technology), BYD holds a close third place at 315,600. Tesla is 13th, with 112,400 units sold globally this past July. According to BYD's earnings call in August, about 2/3 of its sales were hybrids, but its full EV sales numbers still grew by 12%.
We do have to remember that BYD did have a slower start to this year. Thus, despite a strong July, BYD’s global numbers this year place the brand in 8th place. That puts them behind Honda, Toyota and Chevrolet. Also, if we go off of total sales from a brand’s parent company, like looking at all of GM or Stellantis’s global sales instead of just Chevrolet or Jeep, BYD is still far behind.
This is still impressive, though. Remember that BYD no longer sells pure ICE vehicles so these sales numbers come from PHEV, EV and Hybrid models making inroads in both China and abroad. From what we’ve experienced, BYD’s cars are generally competent and likable vehicles that are competitively priced. It’s not hard to understand why buyers are flocking to the cars, much to the chagrin of European governments as well as non-Chinese car manufacturers.
Things are only expected to go upward for BYD from here on out. Carnewschina says that for the Chinese car market, sales tend to pick up during the second half of the year. Part of BYD’s sales lull was initially blamed on a busy Lunar New Year deterring buyers from making large purchases. Tariffs in the EU, U.S. and Canada seem like they’ve only been a speed bump, since BYD’s continuing to expand into new markets and diversify its supply chain and manufacturing base. EU tariffs took affect in early July, and U.S. and Canadian tariffs have made entry into those markets unlikely if not impossible. Still, BYD is one of the few profitable Chinese car manufacturers. It’s also introducing more products, like the new Seal 06 GT.
We’ll have to wait to see just how well BYD does by the end of this year, but things look like sunshine and rainbows right now for the brand.
Contact the author: kevin.williams@insideevs.com
