SHANGHAI (Reuters) -BYD’s production slid for a second straight month in August, marking its first consecutive monthly contraction since 2020 in a further sign that the Chinese EV giant is putting the brakes on its massive years-long expansion.
The world’s biggest EV producer made 353,090 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids (PHEV) globally last month, down 3.78% from a year earlier, according to a monthly filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Monday. That follows a 0.9% drop in July.
The last time BYD’s production fell for two consecutive months was in June and July 2020.
Reuters reported in June that BYD, the biggest Chinese rival to Tesla, was slowing its production pace by reducing shifts at some factories in China and had delayed plans to add new production lines.
Its sales in China, meanwhile, slid 14.3% year on year to 292,813 vehicles, down for a fourth consecutive month, even as global sales remained slightly up. BYD’s sales in Europe are growing fast, data showed on Monday.
China sales, however, account for nearly 80% of BYD’s total sales.
Monday’s data suggests the company has only met 52.1% of its yearly sales target of 5.5 million units in the first eight months. And some analysts have said that the company is unlikely to meet that target.
China Merchants Bank International analysts said they had cut their BYD sales forecast by 5% to 4.9 million units for this year, as they believe it “has become more cautious about its inventories”.
The drop in production and sales come shortly after BYD reported that quarterly profit fell for the first time in three and a half years, reflecting how pressure to stay competitive was beginning to take a toll.
The company’s shares fell sharply on Monday.
A drop in BYD’s PHEV production and sales since April persisted, while overall EV sales grew 34.4% and production rose 26% in August versus a year earlier. BYD has begun making and selling more EVs than PHEVs since April.
(Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Joe Bavier and Susan Fenton)
