BYD’s Export Sprint Narrows the Gap With Chery, but Home-Market Price War Keeps Profits in the Slow Lane
Published on 07/21/2026 at 12:02 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The race for China’s export crown is tightening. BYD ended June just 17,000 vehicles behind industry leader Chery, slashing the deficit from 23,000 a month earlier. The narrowing gap comes as China shipped a record 1.037 million new cars in June, a 75% year-on-year surge, with Chery’s market share slipping from 22.9% to 18.1% while Geely, SAIC, and Great Wall Motor rounded out the top five and Tesla China landed in sixth.
The export push is becoming BYD’s lifeline. Back home, a brutal price war has sapped momentum: the company sold 1.808.511 electrified vehicles in the first half of 2026, a 15.72% drop from a year earlier. Overseas sales, however, jumped 70.65% to 792.256 units, forcing BYD to raise its full-year export target from 1.3 million to 1.5 million vehicles. By mid-year, it had already reached roughly 53% of that goal. The shift is structural: in 2025, domestic buyers accounted for 77% of BYD’s 3.55 million sales; by the first half of 2026, that share had tumbled to 56%.
Chairwoman Stella Li has made no secret of her ambition to overtake Toyota as the world’s largest automaker—without ever selling a car in the United States, where a 100% tariff and an import ban remain in place. Toyota sold roughly 4.46 million vehicles globally from January to May, down 3.1% year on year, while BYD’s 2025 total of about 4.5 million already puts it in striking distance. Li insists growth will be organic, not through acquisitions.
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Europe is central to that plan despite tariff headwinds. The European Union lowered its surcharge on Chinese-made battery-electric vehicles from a peak of 22% in 2024 to 17% in the first quarter of 2026. BYD nevertheless doubled its BEV imports into the bloc, while SAIC—facing a 35% tariff—halved its shipments. Germany, Europe’s largest car market, provided a standout example: BYD sold 6.259 vehicles there in June, a 273.7% leap from the same month last year. The company has pledged €2 billion to install 3.000 fast-charging points across Germany.
Yet the overseas expansion is not without political friction. Former Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, who stepped down from parliament on July 15 to take a leadership role at BYD, is the subject of a probe by Hungarian authorities into possible favoritism. Szijjártó helped secure BYD’s first European factory in Hungary in 2023, and Budapest approved roughly $934 million in subsidies for the construction of a European headquarters and research center in Budapest. The investigation covers grants, tax breaks, permits, and infrastructure projects. U.S. trade adviser Peter Navarro has warned that BYD is “increasingly pressuring” the global auto industry, a charge rebutted by Volvo CEO Håkan Samuelsson, who credited Chinese automakers’ effective strategies rather than unfair practices.
On the product side, BYD’s King brand launched the Seal 05 DM-i sedan in Mexico, offering a combined range of up to 1.680 kilometers under NEDC testing, while Denza unveiled the production version of the Z9S with 1.194 horsepower and fast-charging capability. Denza sold 18.631 units in June. The Yangwang U9 Track Edition, boasting approximately 3.000 hp, recorded a speed of 293.54 mph at the Papenburg test track—a claimed electric-vehicle record, according to driver Marc Basseng. A separate incident drew attention when a BYD Qin Plus DM-i caught fire after a collision in Chengdu; both occupants escaped unharmed. The Qin Plus accounted for 13.726 deliveries in June, or 7.7% of BYD’s total.
The stock market reflects the tension between export momentum and margin erosion. In Hong Kong, BYD shares closed at 10.02 euros after a 4.65% weekly gain and have since edged to 10.08 euros, a 15.83% rebound from the two-year low hit in late June. Still, the stock trades 32% below its record of 14.80 euros from July 2025. It sits just over 5% above its 50-day moving average but remains 5.7% below the 200-day average of 10.62 euros—a classic sign of a fragile recovery. The core worry is profitability: first-quarter net profit plunged as the domestic price war devoured margins. Investors are watching the next quarterly reports for evidence that rising export volumes can offset the home-market squeeze.
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