China’s BYD is popping the champagne this week after securing record-setting delivery numbers in its home market, allowing the company to triple its profit figures for the first half of 2023.
BYD remains by far China’s single-largest electric vehicle manufacturer by volume thanks to a healthy jump in deliveries, alongside a 204.7% increase in its H1 profits to 10.95 billion yuan (AUD $2.3 billion).
The company says that the success of the Dynasty and Ocean plug-in hybrid and EV variants have helped it hit a new sales record of 700,244 vehicles in the second quarter of 2023.
Perhaps more importantly, though, a price-cutting offensive launched by BYD, Tesla and forty other EV manufacturers in China has seen price tags drop by anywhere between 4-25% and surely helped increase delivery volumes.
In the first half of 2023, BYD delivered 612,425 battery-electric vehicles – just 10 per cent of which were exported to overseas markets.
For reference, BYD’s main rival, Tesla Motors managed to produce and deliver 899,015 electric vehicles in the same six-month timeframe, though Tesla’s gross margins have shrunk as the company prioritises sale volume over profit figures, according to a Reuters report.
News of BYD’s record-setting profit figures comes as the company acquired U.S.-based Jabil Inc’s electronics manufacturing operations in China.
The deal will, presumably, help expand its consumer electronics footprint which could translate into fast-tracked components for its electric vehicles.