BYD's Ambition to Beat Toyota and Volkswagen in Five Years

JAKARTA - BYD continues to show great ambitions in the global automotive industry. After occupying the position as the sixth largest car manufacturer in the world last year, the Chinese company is now targeting a much higher achievement.

BYD wants to become the world's largest carmaker and surpass the sales of the Volkswagen Group and Toyota. The ambitious target was delivered directly by BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu at the company's annual shareholders meeting in Shenzhen.

According to him, BYD's business expansion in the next few years will be supported by the presence of the second generation Blade battery that the company is preparing. "BYD will really become the number 1 car manufacturer globally in terms of scale in the next five years," he said at the event, as quoted by Carscoops, Saturday, June 13.

However, realizing this target is not easy. Wang's statement is considered very bold considering the increasingly tight competition in the global automotive industry. A number of observers even consider this move similar to the strategy often carried out by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Where, Elon Musk conveyed a big target to increase investor optimism amid pressure on the company's share price. To realize his ambition, BYD must record very aggressive sales growth.

Throughout last year, the company booked sales of around 4.6 million vehicles. The figure is still far behind Toyota Motor Corporation which managed to sell 11.21 million units if including the Lexus and Daihatsu brands. Meanwhile, Toyota's sales alone reached around 9.6 million units.

This means that BYD needs to increase sales volume by about one million vehicles each year for five consecutive years to be able to match Toyota's achievements. The challenge is getting harder because the slowdown in vehicle demand in the Chinese domestic market is starting to affect the company's performance.

In May, BYD sold 207,372 vehicles in China, down 29.2 percent from the same period a year earlier. This condition makes expansion into international markets increasingly important for the company.

A number of countries are projected to become new strategic markets for BYD, with Canada being named as one of the main destinations to support future sales growth.