The SHANGHAI Reuters-BYD was the top-selling car brand in China in the first four weeks of November, according to brokerage data, outperforming the Volkswagen brand in a reversal that highlights the pressure on legacy brands in the world's largest auto market.
In November, China's retail sales nearly doubled from a year earlier, after the U.S. automaker cut prices and offered incentives on Model Y and Model 3 models, according to data from China Merchants Bank International CMBI.
Retail sales for BYD totaled 152,863 vehicles from Nov. 1 to Nov. 27, a nearly 83% increase in average daily sales compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the data.
BYD's tally was higher than Volkswagen's retail sales of 143,602 retail sales and Toyota Motor Corp's 115,272, which were 0.3% and 0.5% lower on the year.
The Volkswagen AG group still outsold BYD when the 36,847 units sold under the Audi brand are included.
If the retail sales trend holds for the full month, it would be the first time that BYD, which only began making cars in 2003, has top the sales charts in China and the first time a company with a line up of plug-in hybrids and pure electric vehicles EVs has led the charts.
Automakers have been bracing for a wider downturn in China's market because of the fact that incentives are waning and the country's zero-COVID policies have kept consumers away from showrooms and weighed on sentiment as the economy slows.
In the first four weeks of November, the average daily sales of cars produced in China fell 7% year-on-year in terms of average daily sales, compared to the 2% decline in the first three weeks of October, according to CMBI data.
The global carmakers that are known as Tesla have been losing sales and market share in China due to their domestic rivals who win consumers with a wider range of affordable EVs and features like in-car entertainment and autonomous drive.
Stellantis said in October that its joint venture in China would file for bankruptcy, the first JV failure by a foreign brand in the EV era.
Plant usage in China has fallen by 30 percentage points and over 50 percentage points in the past five years, including Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford and Hyundai.