Sales of BYD last year surpassed $100 billion, leapfrogging rival Tesla, as the Chinese auto giant wows consumers with a range of electric and hybrid cars packed with high-tech features.
Shenzhen-based BYD reported revenue of 777 billion yuan ($107 billion) for the 12 months ended Dec 31, up 29% from the year before. Tesla, founded by Elon Musk, earlier reported 2024 revenue of $97.7 billion. The Chinese EV maker’s net profit rose 34% to 40.3 billion yuan ($5.6 billion), beating analysts’ estimates for a gain of 39.5 billion yuan.
During a briefing on Tuesday in Hong Kong, chairman and founder Wang Chuanfu narrowed the company’s 2025 sales target, saying BYD was now aiming to sell around 5.5 million vehicles this year, including 800,000 units overseas.
That’s a more specific target than the 5-6 million BYD had earlier touted, including about one million exports.
BYD shares fell as much as 4.1% in Hong Kong trading on Tuesday. Even so, the stock is up 46% this year and last week hit a record high.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, BYD reported 73% growth year-on-year in net profit of 15 billion yuan on 275 billion yuan in sales. Analysts at Citibank and Morgan Stanley said the performance was in line with expectations.
“This was a good set of results with very high earnings quality,” Citi analyst Jeff Chung said.
BYD has risen quickly to the top of China’s car market — the world’s biggest and most competitive in terms of electric vehicles. This year alone, BYD has introduced a new ecosystem that allows EVs to charge for 400 kilometres in just five minutes, and has introduced advanced driver assistance technology in even its most basic models.
While BYD also sells about the same number of EVs as Tesla — 1.76 million in 2024 versus 1.79 million — when all of its other passenger hybrid car sales are included, it’s much larger. BYD’s total deliveries last year climbed to 4.27 million, almost as much as US-based Ford.
The company is off to a strong start in 2025, with sales in the first two months up 93% year-on-year to 623,300 units.
Cathie Wood, the founder of ARK Investment Management and a long-time Tesla bull, said the US automaker is still very competitive compared to BYD, and she’s excited about the impending launch of a low-cost model.
“We are looking at the BYD cars and they’re fabulous from what we can see,” she said in a Bloomberg TV interview in Hong Kong on Tuesday. “Fit, finish and design.”
One area where Tesla still clearly leads, however, is market valuation. The US carmaker is worth about $800 billion despite a share-price rout in which the company’s capitalisation has fallen by 38% this year. BYD has a market capitaliation closer to $157 billion.
Tesla also makes more money than BYD on an absolute basis; Tesla’s net profit last year was $7.6 billion.
The recent slump in Tesla shares has been attributed in part to growing public unease over the role Elon Musk is playing as President Donald Trump’s chief cheerleader and cost-cutter.
And whereas Tesla is losing in China — shipments have been backsliding there for the past five consecutive months on a year-on-year basis — BYD is winning. China is still far and away BYD’s biggest market, where it commands a share of almost 15%, not just for new-energy vehicles but any sort of passenger car.
BYD doesn’t sell passenger cars in the US yet due to punitive tariffs on made-in-China automobiles, but it has made big inroads into markets in Europe, places in Asia like Singapore and Thailand, as well as Australia.
Chairman Wang said in a statement the company planned to keep boosting research and development while bolstering its product competitiveness, including in its focus of succeeding outside of China.
He also said that Chinese auto brands in the era of intelligence-led vehicles were no longer merely followers, but rather at the forefront of the trend. They’re “daring” to be first in the world and are collaborating with other domestic brands to go global and move up the value chain, he said.
