BYD sales in China slow as overseas deliveries skyrocket

Despite selling 314,100 cars worldwide in April, BYD sales dropped 15.7 per cent compared to this time last year, its eighth consecutive month of decline since sales started sliding in September last year.

It is a result of a decline in BYD sales in its home market of China, with export regions like Australia continuing to grow at a rapid rate, Car News China reports.

Although the news is not what BYD had hoped, it is still a step in the right direction following March sales, which were 6.3 per cent lower compared to last month, reporting only 295,639 passenger vehicles sold.

Overseas sales, such as those in Australia, continue to prop up the Chinese brand's bad fortune in its home market, reporting over 40 per cent of its total April sales of cars and utes in exports.

That number has seen a 70.9 per cent improvement year-on-year, with the brand reporting 455,707 sales so far this year in export markets, a figure that the brand aims to expand threefold to sell 1.5 million cars in export markets this year.

Of the cars BYD has sold outside of China this year, Australia has accounted for 25,243 – or 5.5 per cent – of that figure.

Australian sales continue to grow, however, with BYD's local position a 110.8 per cent improvement over where it sat at the same time last year.

In April, BYD was the second-best selling brand in the country with 7702 sales, behind Toyota's 15,185 number.

It is reported that BYD sales are struggling in its home market due to the number of competitors in China, which fields over 100 new brands, some with a new-energy focus like BYD.

Export markets continue to grow for the brand, but they are not yet in a position to offset losses locally.

Previous top suppliers in years gone by, Japan and Thailand, remain in second and third spot respectively, Japan only losing out by a small margin of about four thousand vehicles over that period.