BYD's Australian Sales Double as JPMorgan Slashes Price Target Ahead of Paris Show
Published on 10/08/2026 at 02:50 | Editorial boerse-global.de
BYD is heading to the Paris Motor Show with a markedly different growth story than the one it tells at home. From October 12 to 18, the Chinese automaker will occupy a central stage in the French capital, with a press conference scheduled for opening day and a new model set to be unveiled. The exhibition underscores how heavily the company is now leaning on markets beyond China.
That pivot is visible most clearly in Australia, where the brand has entrenched itself among the leading foreign players. Australian buyers are turning away from combustion engines at pace, and BYD has captured a sizable share of that shift. Through the end of September, the company delivered 76,614 new vehicles there this year — a 102 percent jump from the 37,923 units moved in the same period a year earlier.
The momentum extends well past the southern hemisphere. In Brazil, where BYD has run its own manufacturing operation since last year, the King sedan topped the mid-size segment in September with 1,666 new registrations. India told a similar story: sales there climbed 35.9 percent year-on-year to 836 units, according to industry body FADA. Local production is doing double duty — cushioning the company against trade restrictions while stabilizing supply chains — and it is helping BYD peel market share away from legacy manufacturers that have been slow to electrify their lineups.
Exports Offset a Cooling Home Market
The overseas push has become a crucial buffer. Reuters data show BYD's passenger car and pickup deliveries abroad surged 153.9 percent in September to 179,877 units. For the first nine months of 2026, foreign shipments in that segment totaled 1,337,831 vehicles, against overall sales of 3,131,576 units across all markets.
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At home, the picture is far less rosy. Figures from SMM and CPCA put China sales in September at 282,900 units, down nearly 13 percent. Even with the export lift pushing global volume to 463,600 vehicles, the domestic decline carries weight. A bruising price war among Chinese manufacturers is squeezing margins, and cautious consumers are making targets harder to hit. Reports indicate overall sales growth slowed to 17 percent year-on-year in September, cooling from 18 percent in August and 22 percent in July.
Sentiment on the analyst side has followed suit. Roughly a week ago, JPMorgan downgraded the stock from Overweight to Neutral and cut its price target to HKD 88 from HKD 124, citing persistent weakness in Chinese domestic demand, rising input costs, and regulatory and trade obstacles to overseas expansion. The downgrade came shortly after BYD's sales during China's traditional seasonal peak fell short of expectations, pressuring the shares.
New Models Keep Coming
None of that has slowed the product offensive. Beyond the Paris appearance, BYD will launch its Han sedan on October 13. The group's Fangchengbao brand also showed off the interior of the Ti 9 plug-in hybrid SUV, which is slated to go on sale in the fourth quarter of 2026.
Investors, though, remain wary of the recovery's overall pace. The stock shed 1.2 percent in today's session to close at EUR 8.41, leaving it down 21 percent since the start of the year and just 4.7 percent above its 52-week low. Whether management can keep expanding on new continents — and gradually loosen the company's dependence on China — will determine the medium- to long-term outlook. Until international volumes are large enough to fully offset domestic swings, the shares are likely to stay vulnerable to market turbulence.
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