Overseas Sales Exceed 1.15 Million from January to August, Domestic Market Under Pressure, Overseas Market Experiences Boom

Since the beginning of the year, the domestic automotive market has been under sales pressure, which is common knowledge. For example, the passenger car sales performance in the first half of this year declined even more than 20% compared to the same period last year, prompting many automakers to seek new sales breakthrough points. However, thinking of solutions after problems arise feels somewhat like last-minute cramming. For large automakers who plan three steps ahead, they obviously won't do this; instead, they chose to layout in other areas long ago, such as BYD which we are talking about today.

Overseas sales exceed 1.5 million from January to August

That's right. As time moves into new months, BYD's monthly sales figures are also released.

According to official data, BYD's August sales reached 440,293 units, continuing to lead the overall market. At this point, BYD's cumulative sales for the first 8 months have reached 2,668,015 units, ranking high on the domestic automotive sales leaderboard. Under the accumulation of rapid monthly sales data, BYD's cumulative new energy vehicle sales have reached an astonishing 17.8 million units or more, with the potential to achieve an epic 20 million unit milestone in the final battle of the year!

Compared to these already shocking sales figures, there is a set of data that is even more surprising, which is the overseas sales performance.

As mentioned at the beginning, although the domestic automotive market is under sales pressure, it will not affect leading automakers like BYD. However, large enterprises must have the awareness of thinking about danger while in safety and seek new sales breakthrough points; for example, the best direction currently is the overseas market. However, a question arises: sales in the overseas market are extremely difficult; it's not simply about shipping vehicles out and selling them. They must face stricter regulations, different regional cultures, and even the acceptance of new energy vehicles by foreign consumers. Therefore, for automakers to achieve breakthroughs in overseas markets, long-term market research and reputation building are required.

In response, BYD, which had already completed its overseas layout, achieved its first overseas sales breakthrough of over 1 million units in 2025.

As time enters 2026, BYD has maintained a high-speed state on the overseas export track. The proportion of overseas sales in recent months is basically close to half of the total sales. Especially when the overseas sales performance in August reached a new historical high of over 180,000 units again, BYD surpassed the full year's overseas export sales of 1 million units from last year in just 8 months, and pushed this data higher to a breakthrough of 1.15 million units!

Accelerating into a new stage of global development

So the question arises, BYD which is expected to double its sales in overseas exports this year, how did it achieve success on this new track? What is its secret?

Actually, whether it is the domestic market or the global overseas market, the success routes for enterprises are all very similar, which is mastering core technologies themselves and continuing to innovate. Coincidentally, these are BYD's strengths. As an automaker that consistently adheres to the development concept of "Technology is King, Innovation is Foundation", BYD attaches great importance to technological innovation. Its R&D investment in the first quarter of this year alone reached as high as 11.3 billion yuan, leading domestic mainstream automakers. In the past 2025, BYD ranked first among A-share listed companies for two consecutive years with R&D investment reaching as high as 63.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17%!

As of now, BYD, which has accumulated R&D investment exceeding 250 billion yuan, is also continuously bringing more disruptive technological successes to the global automotive market and consumers. For example, BYD's second-generation Blade Battery and Superfast Charging technology launched at the beginning of the year, with technical advantages such as high density, high safety, and ultra-fast recharging efficiency, made up for many shortcomings of new energy vehicles, effectively improving users' usage experience.

Not only that, in the field of intelligent driving where global automakers and even tech companies are continuously adding emphasis, following the intelligent parking guarantee promise that opened the era of smart driving for the public, BYD also took the lead in promising a 1-year safety guarantee for city navigation in May not long ago. From this, we can also foresee one point: city navigation will gradually become a lifetime guarantee in the near future, and BYD can also obtain massive driving data with extremely high user usage rates. The virtuous cycle formed by the two will also help BYD maintain a leading global posture in the field of intelligent driving.

Besides the level of technological innovation, BYD's ambition globally is not limited to this, its overseas strategy has also long formed a pattern of "Leading in Latin America, Breaking Through in Europe, Blooming in Asia and Pacific". For example, BYD's first overseas specialized model Racco (BYD RACCO) has landed in Japan and quickly become a hit in this automotive power; as BYD's overseas factory, the Thailand factory has welcomed its second anniversary of production; BYD's first overseas cloud rail has also opened in Brazil, and the Brazil factory has also achieved the 100,000th new energy vehicle rollout.

Expert Car Talk: Undoubtedly, the reason why BYD dares to shout "New Energy Vehicle World Champion" is not because it is in a leading global posture in new energy vehicle sales performance, but because it has achieved an entire industry chain layout from technological innovation to local landing, just like when joint venture brands entered the domestic market before. The only difference is that BYD, which has achieved a counterattack on the overseas market now, has become a "foreign brand" in the eyes of foreigners. This identity transformation not only proves that BYD has accelerated into a new stage of globalization of deepening local roots and high-quality development, but also means that Chinese Smart Manufacturing has already possessed leading strength in the global market!