Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD is set to cement its standing as the world’s biggest electric vehicle seller in 2025, thanks to booming sales overseas and with its key rival — and former world leader — Tesla remaining on the backfoot.
BYD said in a stock filing on Thursday that sales of its battery-powered electric vehicles rose 27.9% to 2.26 million units last year.
Tesla, meanwhile, published analysts’ estimates last week that said the carmaker had sold around 1.65 million vehicles for the year as a whole — a more than 8% fall year-on-year. The US electric vehicle-maker is due to release its total sales for 2025 later on Friday.
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Still the numbers would put BYD on track to outsell Tesla for the first time in annual electric vehicle sales.
Key to that growth will be BYD’s swift expansion abroad, especially Europe, where BYD has been significantly outpacing Tesla.
BYD’s sales abroad rose to a record 1,046,083 units in 2025, a 150.7% jump from 2024. The company has aimed to sell up to 1.6 million cars outside China in 2026, but has not disclosed its overall sales goal.
Numbers at home tell a different story
The jump in overseas deliveries have been part of BYD’s larger push to offset the challenges at home, where its sales growth slowed to 7.73% in 2025 — its weakest pace in five years.
Within China, the company is grappling with growing local competition and a weakening of its technological lead.
BYD’s total sales were down 18% in December from a year earlier, extending declines for a fourth month and marking the largest monthly drop in nearly two years.
For the full year, sales rose by 7.73% to 4.6 million units, meeting its slashed target. BYD lowered its 2025 sales target by 16% as domestic sales weakened from July on, challenged by local competitors like Geely and Leapmotor in the budget segment.
Meanwhile, company chairman Wang Chuanfu has said the slowing sales were due to the company’s weakening technological leadership
According to Chinese media outlet Southern Metropolis Daily, Wang told an investor conference in December that the group would release major innovations in 2026, but did not elaborate on what they are.
BYD offered advanced autonomous driving features on EVs priced as low as $9,555 in February and launched two models equipped with an ultra-fast charging technology in March. But its efforts have done little to shield the company from losing market share to competitors.
BYD’s sweeping price cuts on more than 20 models in May triggered a stock selloff across the Chinese auto sector and prompted a rare public warning from the chairman of competitor Great Wall Motor, who said the world’s largest auto industry was in an unhealthy state.
BYD subsequently slowed production and delayed capacity expansion plans.
In November, BYD told some suppliers it wanted to stop using in-house financial notes to pay them, a big shift away from a practice that helped power its rise, but has been criticised for disadvantaging its parts makers.
- Reuters, with additional editing by Vishakha Saxena
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