- BYD says that it is "highly confident" that it will reach 1.5 million overseas sales in 2026.
- But it's facing dropping profits and shrinking share in its home market.
BYD, the king of the global EV market, isn't letting a recent sales slump get it down. On a post-earnings briefing with analysts on Monday, the automaker said that it was "highly confident" that it would sell 1.5 million vehicles outside of China in 2026, Reuters reported. That's 15% more than the 1.3 million units it projected in January.
BYD also noted that sales outside of China could eventually make up around half of its total business.
The more ambitious target comes during a difficult time for BYD. It announced a larger-than expected 38% drop in net income for the fourth quarter on Friday. And it posted a 19% drop in profits for the full year, its first annual decline in profits in four years. That is a product of intensifying competition, softening domestic demand, and a brutal pricing squeeze on its home turf. Geely also sold more vehicles globally than BYD in the first two months of 2026.
Growing exports are a bright spot for BYD, though. The company's overseas sales more than doubled in 2025 to nearly 1.1 million vehicles, 22.7% of its business. And in the first two months of 2026, they accounted for around 50%.
But growing exports won't be cheap or easy. BYD will have to contend with dealership requirements, regulations, tariffs, logistics, consumer trust, and the list goes on. The automaker plans to expand with factories in Hungary and Turkey (plus a third plant in active consideration). BYD even mentioned that it would be open to acquiring a legacy automaker outright to make its global expansion even easier.
BYD may not be in the United States yet, but it's putting pressure on global automakers nonetheless. It is already seeing success in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, as the automotive power balance shifts from West to East. The uncomfortable truth for legacy automakers is that trade barriers in the U.S. can only do so much. BYD doesn't have to win everywhere to pose a threat to the West's bottom line.
BYD is just one of China's many automakers that have figured out how to scale quickly and efficiently in ways that other brands—especially the heavy hitters from the West—have yet to master. If BYD keeps it up, it could pose a very real stress-test for the auto industry as a whole.
