BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu expects that the Chinese electric vehicle giant is likely to achieve the world's largest scale within the next five years.
At a shareholders' meeting held at BYD's Shenzhen headquarters on Tuesday, Wang said that the new energy vehicle industry faced tremendous pressure in the first quarter of this year, mainly due to the rollback of the purchase tax incentive policy at the start of the year.
As of January 1 this year, the policy exempting new energy vehicles from purchase tax officially ended and was replaced by a halved tax reduction, which impacted BYD's sales.
However, Wang emphasized that the worst period has passed. In March this year, BYD launched its second-generation blade battery and flash-charging technology, which quickly received high praise from markets at home and abroad, leading to a surge in orders. Starting this May, sales have begun to turn positive.
He said: “With production capacity continuing to climb, the operating cash flow by the end of this year will gradually return to an excellent level.”
Wang forecasted that more new technologies will continue to be launched in the coming years: “With a dual-driven approach, both domestically and internationally, I believe that by 2030 BYD will truly be number one in the world in terms of scale.”
Over the past year, facing fierce competition from domestic peers, BYD's domestic sales have been hit and growth momentum stalled. As a result, BYD's stock price in Hong Kong has plunged more than 45% from its peak over the past year, while its Shenzhen A-shares also fell 33% during the same period.
In 2025, BYD ranked sixth globally with sales of 4.6 million vehicles. To achieve the goal of being number one worldwide, BYD must surpass Japan's Toyota Motor, whose annual sales last year were more than double BYD's. However, according to China's Passenger Car Association data, Toyota's market share in overseas regions like Southeast Asia and the Middle East is increasingly being eroded by Chinese automakers.
Thanks to relatively low trade barriers, BYD's exports surged 65% year-on-year from January to May this year, with Brazil, the UK, and Australia becoming its largest overseas markets. However, strong overseas growth has not fully offset the drag of weak domestic performance, as BYD's total deliveries still declined by over 20% during the same period.