BYD, the Chinese multinational manufacturer, has been reporting strong growth in recent times. In October 2022, the company reported sales of 217,816 vehicles globally, including 217,518 passenger vehicles, accounting for a growth of 144.7% over the same period last year. Cumulatively, the company has sold over 2.9 million new energy vehicles worldwide as of last month.
In a release issued by the company, BYD said it has always adhered to the two new energy routes of pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in parallel.
Even in the domestic market, BYD has witnessed a surge in demand, largely due to the roll-out of multiple new models over the last year. In a recent analysis, GlobalData – a leading data and analytics company – said each of these models, underpinned by the company’s cell-to-pack battery technology, which uses long format lithium ferrous phosphate (LFP) blade cells, has enabled the company to improve its competitiveness.
This has helped the company to a large extent to use its current competitive advantage and penetrate new markets, GlobalData said.
BYD’s strong financial position and class-leading technology has helped turn its attention to overseas mature markets such as Australia, Japan, and Europe. The company is primarily focussed on selling BEVs in these markets, such as the BYD Atto 3 model, which is built on its all-electric platform, known as ‘e-platform 3.0’.
The BYD Atto 3 model was also launched in India on October 11, 2022. Globally, BYD sold 27,548 units of the Atto 3 in October, taking the cumulative global sales of the model to over 400,000 units.
Optimistic Future For BYD
Analysing BYD’s strengths, David Leah, Senior Automotive Analyst, GlobalData said, “The cell-to-pack battery technology reduces cost, maximises space utilisation, and has a higher energy density compared to the conventional LFP batteries. In addition, BYD has invested heavily in expanding its production capacity, and has the unique advantage for a battery electric vehicle (BEV) producer of being highly vertical integrated, allowing the carmaker to further drive-up economies of scale.”
He believes BYD’s focus on BEVs makes sense, particularly in Europe, given the region’s ambitious zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) targets, as well as growing demand from consumers for affordable ZEVs.
“As a result, by the end of next year, BYD could well be active in more than 40 markets, compared with only a handful at present, with Europe being a key market, and accounting for the bulk of sales outside of China,” Leah said.
Even as GlobalData remains optimistic about BYD’s future, it said the carmaker is likely to face stiff competition both from legacy OEMs as well as new entrants, and not least the BEV market leader, Tesla. The legacy OEMs, GlobalData added, are currently in the process of building up their BEV capabilities as well as maximising production efficiencies, it said.
“Many have touted BYD as a major threat to Tesla, especially given that BYD has sold more BEVs than Tesla in China this year, the first time since 2019. However, it remains to be seen whether BYD can overtake Tesla on the global stage as the bestselling BEV brand over the coming years,” Leah concluded.
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