BYD’s Global Engine Offsets a Sputtering Home Market as Brazil Hits a Six-Figure Milestone
Published on 07/19/2026 at 10:12 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The Chinese electric-vehicle giant BYD is living two lives simultaneously. At home, a brutal price war has slashed domestic sales by nearly 40% in the first half of 2025 – and the carnage is ongoing. Abroad, the company’s export machine is humming: overseas deliveries surged 94.7% year-on-year in the first half of 2026 to 790,000 vehicles, with a single-month record of 174,800 in June. Nowhere is that dichotomy starker than in Brazil, where the company’s repurposed Ford plant in Camaçari has just churned out its 100,000th electric vehicle – a BYD Seagull – a little over twelve months after production began.
The Brazilian factory, backed by an investment equivalent to roughly $978 million, is already the crown jewel of BYD’s overseas expansion. Its current annual capacity of 150,000 vehicles is set to double to 300,000 by the end of 2026, with a long-term ceiling of 600,000 units. Local content is targeted to reach 50% by year-end. The strategy is paying off: in April 2026, BYD became Brazil’s top-selling automaker by retail volume with a 12.8% share, and it commands 92.16% of the pure-electric segment and 35.8% of the hybrid market. Beyond domestic sales, the plant has booked export orders worth 100,000 vehicles to Argentina and Mexico.
That Latin American beachhead is just one spoke in a rapidly widening global production network. In Europe, BYD sold 187,700 vehicles in 2025 – a 268.6% jump versus the prior year – with Germany and the UK clocking gains of 700% and 576.9%, respectively. To feed that demand, the company is pouring roughly €4 billion into a Hungarian plant that will begin production in the fourth quarter of 2026, and it is close to deciding on a second European factory site after its initial one in Hungary. Overall, overseas sales in 2025 accounted for 22.8% of total volume, or 1.0496 million vehicles, up 145% year-on-year.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying BYD?
The financial picture is a tale of two margins. BYD’s full-year 2025 revenue crossed 800 billion yuan for the first time, but net profit slipped nearly 19%, squeezed by collapsing domestic margins. The overseas business, by contrast, generated a gross margin of 28.1% – a full 10.9 percentage points higher than the 17.2% earned in China. CEO Wang Chuanfu told shareholders at the annual meeting on June 9 that he expects exports to hit 1.5 million units in 2026, adding that the figure would likely be exceeded, and reiterated his ambition to make BYD the world’s top automaker by production and sales by 2030. He also noted that monthly sales growth should accelerate by 20,000 to 30,000 vehicles per month in the coming months, while the new-energy-vehicle penetration rate in China has climbed from 38.6% in January to 62.9% in May.
Amid the operational surge, BYD hasn’t let up on product development. On July 17, it unveiled the eighth-generation Tang SUV, measuring 5,045 mm in length with a 2,950 mm wheelbase and a top single-motor variant delivering 300 kW. And the Yangwang U9 Track Edition, a four-motor, 1,200-volt hypercar producing around 3,000 horsepower, hit 472.4 km/h (293.54 mph) on the Papenburg test track in Germany, setting a world speed record for EVs and outpacing the Rimac Nevera R and Aspark Owl.
The road hasn’t been entirely smooth. Malaysia tightened import rules for low-cost Chinese EVs effective July 1, requiring a minimum CIF value of 200,000 ringgit and at least 244 PS of motor power – a move that directly affects BYD’s Dolphin and Atto 3 models. And a BYD Qin Plus DM-i was involved in a collision on Chengdu’s Third Ring Road on July 17 that ended with the car fully burned out; the occupants escaped through the windows, and an investigation is ongoing. The Qin Plus still sold 13,726 units in June, ranking among BYD’s top four models.
On the stock market, the gap between operational momentum and share price remains wide. BYD’s stock closed at €9.90 on Friday, down 1.75% on the day, though it has recovered 9.39% over the past 30 days. At 33.11% below its 52-week high of €14.80 from July 2025, the valuation reflects the persistent uncertainty around the domestic price war and the pace at which export earnings can fully offset it. Goldman Sachs expects the first quarter of 2026 to mark an earnings trough, with a recovery driven by overseas volumes in the second half – a thesis that the Brazil factory and the European expansion are now being asked to prove in real time.
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