BYD is accelerating its overseas expansion. On August 10, according to BYD's investor relations official WeChat account, on August 8, BYD signed a cooperation agreement with Thai new energy vehicle dealer RÊVER Automotive, announcing its official entry into Thailand's passenger car market.
A Shanghai Securities News reporter noted that beyond Thailand, BYD has also announced entries into Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Japan. "We will increase efforts to expand overseas markets in the future," BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said previously. He added that the company faces pressure in exploring overseas markets but is still allocating scarce resources to promote the global electric vehicle market.
Recently, BYD disclosed its July production and sales data, showing overseas sales of 4,026 new energy passenger vehicles in that month. This is the first time BYD has disclosed monthly overseas sales figures.
Since 2021, BYD has been actively expanding its overseas passenger car market. In 2021, BYD first entered Norway, delivering 1,000 new energy passenger vehicles, a key step in its overseas strategy. On July 21, 2022, BYD announced its entry into the Japanese passenger car market, with models including Yuan PLUS, Dolphin, and Seal unveiled at a Tokyo发布会, with sales expected to begin in 2023. On August 1, 2022, BYD announced a partnership with European dealer group Hedin Mobility to supply new energy vehicles in Sweden and Germany, and will participate in the October 2022 Paris Motor Show, with first deliveries expected in Q4 2022.
On August 8, 2022, BYD signed the agreement with RÊVER Automotive to enter Thailand's passenger car market, and plans to attend the 39th Thailand International Motor Expo to showcase more models. BYD first deployed electric taxis in Thailand in 2018. Ke Yubin, General Manager of BYD Thailand, said that after years of cultivation, BYD's business in Thailand now covers electric forklifts, electric buses, and other areas.
Notably, BYD executive Li Ke, who recently attracted attention for donating part of her BYD shares, has been instrumental in BYD's overseas business. She is associated with BYD's electric bus and battery businesses in North America. In 1999, Li Ke registered a company in Chicago and later established a North American headquarters in Los Angeles in 2010. In 2013, BYD built an electric bus factory and battery factory in Lancaster, which is now the largest pure electric bus factory in North America.
To accelerate strategies including overseas expansion, BYD has implemented a "zero-yuan" employee stock ownership plan as an incentive. The plan covers 14 executives including Li Ke, Lian Yubo, and He Long, as well as up to 11,986 other employees, with a transfer price of 0 yuan per share. BYD plans to spend 1.8 billion to 1.85 billion yuan to repurchase shares for the plan. As of June 13, the company had spent 1.81 billion yuan to repurchase 5.51 million A-shares, accounting for 0.189% of total share capital.
BYD's overseas push faces challenges, including rising raw material costs and strong domestic demand that has led to a backlog of orders, putting pressure on domestic deliveries. However, the domestic new energy vehicle market is still rapidly growing. Wang Chuanfu estimated that based on the transformation speed in 2021 and market-driven development, the penetration rate could reach 35% by the end of 2022. The China Passenger Car Association reported that in June 2022, the domestic retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles was 27.4%, up 12.8 percentage points from 14.6% in June 2021.
Despite this, internationalization is essential for BYD to become stronger. Zhang Xiang, dean of the New Energy Vehicle Technology Research Institute at Jiangxi New Energy Technology Vocational College, said that while BYD has developed rapidly in recent years, it still lags behind giants like Volkswagen and Toyota. However, BYD has advantages in cost and technology in the new energy vehicle field, while foreign giants are lagging in this area. Additionally, higher subsidies for new energy vehicles in the US and Europe present opportunities for BYD to expand overseas.
In summary, each time BYD announces entry into an overseas market, it highlights core technologies such as blade batteries, DM-i super hybrid, and e-platform 3.0. Zhang Xiang believes that BYD's technology roadmap, which includes both pure electric and plug-in hybrid, makes it more adaptable to international markets. Although BYD surpassed Tesla in new energy vehicle sales in the first half of 2022, Tesla still has a clear advantage in internationalization.
BYD's accelerated overseas expansion also reflects the faster pace of Chinese automakers "going global." According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in the first half of 2022, China exported 202,000 new energy vehicles, accounting for 16.6% of total auto exports, a year-on-year increase of 130%.