BYD reports first annual profit drop as EV battle reaches ‘knockout stage’

BYD has posted its sixth consecutive month of profit decline, with the Chinese automaker confirming a near-20 per cent drop in profit for 2025 and an even bigger 38.2 per cent decline in the final three months of last year.

According to the Financial Times, BYD reported a full-year net profit of ¥32.6 billion ($6.88bn), with operating cashflow declining by 50 per cent, ending years of uninterrupted financial growth for the company.

BYD’s profit margin fell, according to Reuters, by 1.8 percentage points to a still-healthy 20.5 per cent.

It marks the automaker’s third consecutive quarterly profit decline and follows a reduction in its workforce in 2025.

The slide has carried over into 2026, when BYD’s market share in China fell from 27 to 17 per cent to the end of February.

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The Financial Times reported BYD chair Wang Chuanfu as warning that rivalry between brands in China had reached “fever pitch” and was now entering a brutal “knockout stage”, suggesting a period of consolidation for the Chinese auto industry following its massive expansion since 2020.

The hybrid and electric vehicle (EV) maker is now turning to exports for growth, including potentially unlocking sales in the US – the world’s largest new-vehicle market outside China, where it is not currently on sale.

BYD sold 2.3 million EVs globally in 2025 – more than Tesla’s 1.6 million, toppling its US rival as the world’s best-selling EV brand for the year.

However, BYD’s total of 4.6 million sales, including plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) fell short of its previously stated target of 5.5 million sales in 2025.

In Australia last year, BYD closed in on GWM – the top-selling Chinese brand in 2025. GWM sold 52,809 vehicles to place seventh overall, just 394 sales ahead of BYD in eighth.

By the end of February 2026, however, BYD had moved ahead to sit sixth overall on 10,324 sales, with GWM lying seventh on 9198 as the popularity of Chinese brands.

The best-selling BYD model was the Sealion 7 mid-size electric SUV, followed by the plug-in hybrid Shark 6 ute, and the plug-in hybrid Sealion 6 mid-size SUV.

Toyota held the top spot overall (27,916), led by the HiLux ute, ahead of Mazda (14,734), Kia (13,310), Ford (13,023), and Hyundai (12,122). MORE: Explore the BYD showroom