Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD aims to double its sales outside China to more than 800,000 cars in 2025 and will look to overcome tariffs by assembling cars locally, its chairman told analysts on an earnings call on Tuesday.
The company also sees "great opportunities" to grow rapidly in Latin American and Southeast Asian countries, where the governments and people are friendly towards Chinese brands, he said.
With governments abroad weighing or levying tariffs against Chinese-made cars, BYD plans to keep its cost advantage by purchasing key components from China and assembling the vehicles in local markets, Wang added, without specifying the countries he was referring to.
BYD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Wang said last year that BYD expects exports to help shore up profitability. During the Tuesday meeting he told analysts he expected to see the majority of BYD's profits coming from overseas markets "at a certain stage". He didn't specify the timing for that to be achieved.
The company will continue building factories overseas without partners as it has abundant funding, Wang added.
BYD is currently building a factory in Brazil, its biggest market outside China, although the development was hit last year by allegations of labour abuses. The carmaker is also building factories in Thailand, Hungary and Turkey.
In addition, Wang said that BYD had no plans to sell into Canada and the United States in the short term due to geopolitical developments. The Trump administration has maintained duties of 100% on Chinese-made EVs, as has Canada.
Wang told the analysts he was confident BYD's profitability per vehicle would exceed Toyota's when it reached the scale of the Japanese manufacturer, saying BYD's cost control was better.
BYD, which is targeting sales of 5.5 million units this year, has roiled the Chinese auto market by rolling out more affordable models, including its entry-level Seagull electric hatchback that sells for less than $10,000. It also offers smart driving features at no extra charge on most of its lineup.
BYD plans to expand the team that works on intelligent software and components such as semiconductors to as many as 8,000 people from the current 5,000, Wang said, without giving a timeline.
It also intends to take its affordable smart driving technologies to the global market in 2026 or 2027 and plans to send more employees overseas to handle the plan, he added.
