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BYD grew electrified vehicle sales almost 120% year over year in February.
Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg
BYD
delivered a lot of electric vehicles in China in February. That’s good news for all EV makers, as it shows the market is still growing.
Tesla
stock bulls, however, might be unnerved because BYD’s market share in its home country looks to be growing faster than that of Elon Musk’s company.
On Wednesday, BYD (ticker: 1211.Hong Kong) reported February 2023 passenger vehicle sales of 191,664 units in China. That’s up from 150,164 delivered the previous month and 90,268 delivered in February 2022.
BYD’s battery-electric vehicle sales reached 90,639 in February, up from 71,338 delivered in January and from 43,173 delivered in February 2022.
Year to date, BYD said it has sold 341,828 electrified passenger vehicles—including both battery-EVs and its plug-in hybrid vehicles—up from about 183,000 sold in the year-ago period. That’s growth of almost 90%. All battery-electric sales in the first two months of the year came in at 161,977 units, up roughly 80% year over year.
Somewhere,
Berkshire Hathaway
(BRK.B) Vice Chairman Charlie Munger is likely smiling, because BYD seems to be picking up market share more quickly in China than
Tesla
(TSLA). Munger says he owns BYD stock, and recently told CNBC that “BYD is so much ahead of Tesla in China…it’s almost ridiculous.”
China remains the world’s largest market for new cars and new EVs.
Tesla sold about 60,000 units in China in the first two months of 2022, based on industry data tracked by Citi analyst Jeff Chung. Tesla doesn’t report monthly deliveries, so the data available is an approximation based on things such as insurance registrations. The 60,000 figure would represent 40% growth from Tesla’s sales figures for the first two months of 2022. Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tesla might have even gained some market share in China early in 2023, but its growth there would still be lagging behind that of BYD, based on Citi’s data analysis. Total EV sales in China for February aren’t out yet.
In 2022, BYD sold 911,140 all-electric vehicles in China. That works out to a market share of roughly 20% of all battery-electric vehicles sold. In comparison, Tesla sold about 440,000 vehicles in China, capturing roughly 10% of the market.
While BYD sells more cars in China, those are lower-price vehicles. Tesla is far more profitable, and it sells more battery-electric vehicles than BYD worldwide. Investors should also remember that Tesla serves the European market from its Shanghai plant, too. Because it doesn’t sell all its Chinese production domestically, its market share in the country fluctuates from month to month.
BYD’s growth is good news in one way for Tesla and all other EV makers. Wall Street projects 30% to 40% growth in EV sales in China in 2023, and these early results from BYD show that is possible.
BYD’s U.S.-listed American depositary receipts are up 1.3% in Thursday trading. The
S&P 500
is down 0.1%. The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
is up 0.5%.
Tesla stock is down 6.1%, but that likely isn’t because of BYD’s numbers. It appears that analysts and investors were disappointed with Tesla’s investor event Wednesday evening.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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