Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD has posted a sharp drop in annual profit, squeezed by fierce domestic competition and a gruelling price war, even after it spent most of 2025 cementing its position as the world's biggest seller of battery electric vehicles.
BYD's net profit attributable to shareholders fell 19% in 2025 to 32.6 billion yuan (€4.4bn), down from 40.3 billion yuan the previous year, the company said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Friday.
Revenue held up better, rising a modest 3.5% to 804 billion yuan (€105bn) - though the headline numbers mask a company navigating a more difficult terrain than its sales volumes suggest.
BYD's rise to the top of the global EV rankings has been one of the most dramatic stories in the automotive industry.
For years, Tesla was the undisputed leader in battery electric vehicle sales, delivering more than 1.8 million vehicles at its 2023 peak.
In 2024, BYD officially surpassed Tesla in global battery electric vehicle sales for the first time, a milestone that would have seemed implausible a decade earlier - particularly given that Tesla chief executive Elon Musk once openly laughed at the mention of BYD as a competitor, saying he did not see the company as a threat.
By 2025, the gap had widened significantly.
BYD ended the year with 2.25 million all-electric vehicles sold, a 27.9% year-on-year increase, while Tesla reported 1.64 million deliveries - a decline of roughly 9% from 2024.
BYD outsold Tesla by more than 600,000 battery electric vehicles.