BYD Q1 Profit Drops 55% to $599M Amid China Sales Slide

BYD reported a 55.4% drop in first-quarter net profit to 4.1 billion yuan ($599 million) and an 11.8% decline in revenue to 150.2 billion yuan. The company recorded its largest quarterly profit fall since 2020 and continued a multi-quarter sales slide.

The automaker attributed pressure on earnings to cooling demand in China and rising competition, with its core lineup concentrated in models priced below 150,000 yuan (about $21,900). Falling prices in that segment and cuts to trade-in subsidies for cheaper electric cars and plug-in hybrids removed a policy support that had helped volume at that end of the market.

Domestic sales fell for a seventh consecutive month in March, while exports and overseas shipments rose. BYD did not provide a consolidated global sales target in its earnings filing.

The company said it expects to sell at least 1.5 million vehicles overseas in 2026, which would be more than 40% growth from 2025. BYD is expanding local production in key markets, rolling out new technologies and promoting ultra-fast charging. At the Beijing auto show, the company opened pre-sales for the Datang, a full-size electric SUV.

BYD plans a Szeged plant in Hungary with a planned annual capacity of 300,000 cars, but it has not given a timeline for reaching full output.

Political and regulatory scrutiny has risen in Europe. A labor watchdog reported that contractors at BYD’s Hungary construction site required many workers to labor seven days a week and in some cases more than 12-hour shifts. The group reported multiple visits to the site since late 2025 and shared its findings with European authorities. Three members of the European Parliament asked the European Commission to investigate the allegations, marking the first time a Chinese automaker has been raised in Parliament over such claims.

Despite the scrutiny, new BYD registrations in the EU more than doubled in the first two months of the year to 29,291, giving the company about a 1.8% share of the market and placing some models among the top sellers in January. Hungary has been the largest recipient of Chinese auto investment into Europe over the past three years.

BYD recently overtook other manufacturers to become the largest seller of electric vehicles by volume. The company has highlighted overseas growth as central to its 2026 plans but stopped short of issuing a full-year global sales forecast.