At the beginning of the new year, BYD, as one of the world's new energy leaders, launched the "Glory Edition" series of models with its bold and action-oriented temperament, directly targeting the traditional joint venture fuel vehicle brands to launch a large-scale battle, which instantly detonated the entire automotive industry. At a time when many peers are worried that the joint venture fuel car brand will face the risk of collective collapse, we are deeply attracted by BYD's radical spirit of daring to face challenges. So, where does BYD's confidence and determination to take the initiative come from?
Let's flip the timeline forward to 2023 and look back at BYD in that year, this year, BYD launched a whopping 3.02 million new cars to the market, successfully helping China's local automobile manufacturing industry finally win the sales crown of the automobile market again after a long 39 years. In the Chinese market, one out of every three new energy vehicles sold comes from BYD's contribution, and one out of every two hybrid models (HEVs or PHEVs) sold comes from BYD's production line.
Looking at the global market, BYD's annual sales report card of 3,020,000 units has finally made BYD the global new energy vehicle sales champion. In the fourth quarter of 2023, despite the impact of the epidemic and the shortage of ** chain, BYD's pure electric vehicle sales still managed to surpass Tesla, the world's best-selling electric vehicle brand, and seized the throne of the global electric vehicle sales champion. Not only that, according to the prevailing statistics, BYD's total sales in 2023 have surpassed Japan's Suzuki Group, ranking among the top nine in the global car sales list, and becoming the first and only Chinese brand that has been honored to be in the top ten of the global car company sales list in the 70 years since China's development. Moreover, among the top 10 global car companies in terms of sales, BYD is the only company whose sales have continued to grow.
Obviously, it can be seen that it is based on BYD's previous performance and confidence in its own all-round product line that BYD has the courage to launch this decisive battle. In 2023, many of BYD's popular models have won the honor of sales champion in various segments, including mainstream family car brands that are widely loved by consumers, such as Yuan Plus, Song Plus, Qin Family, etc.
It is worth mentioning that BYD has not only achieved vigorous development in the domestic market, but also began to actively invest in the development and expansion of overseas markets. During 2023, BYD's overall export volume increased by a staggering 334 year-on-year, making it the automaker with the most significant growth in the top 10 global brand export sales in 2023.
The presentation of excellent performance, in addition to showing BYD's strong and solid corporate strength, also fully demonstrates the company's comprehensive strength and competitive advantages in many aspects. Among them, the leading cutting-edge technology is undoubtedly the key factor that promotes BYD to win the global sales championship. In order to achieve these goals, BYD has built a "technology fish pond" composed of 11 research institutes with more than 90,000 R&D personnel, and invested more than 100 billion yuan in R&D funds, and has applied for more than 480,000 patents.
Throughout 2023, BYD has successively released a number of breakthrough technological achievements such as Yi Sifang, Yun Yuan, and DMO, applied for more than 6,700 patents, and submitted an average of 27 new patent applications every working day. At the beginning of 2024, BYD has accelerated the pace of intelligent development of new energy vehicles and announced that it has entered a new intelligent era.
In the past, BYD has adopted the strategy of "oil and electricity at the same price" several times, and now it is leading the direction of product pricing with the strategy of "electricity is lower than oil", and the excellent cost control ability brought by the advantages and economies of scale of the whole industry chain cannot be ignored. By giving full play to the advantages of vertical integration, the current BYD has even surpassed Tesla in terms of cost control.
In addition, BYD has a very forward-looking strategic vision, which is also a key factor that contributed to its winning sales championship. With the gradual formation of a diversified brand matrix such as Dynasty, Ocean, Denza, Yangwang and Formula Leopard, BYD has achieved a wide range of models from family cars to luxury cars, from Volkswagen brands to personalized brands, to meet the needs of all levels of society.
The rise in BYD's overall sales has also greatly improved its popularity and influence in the international community. In the "2023 Industry List Top 10 Cars" list, BYD's ranking has risen two places compared with previous years, jumping to the sixth place; In the "2023 Fortune Global 500" list, BYD's ranking has also improved, jumping to 212th place, **224th; In addition, in the "2023 Top 500 Global Brand Value" rankings, BYD's ranking has also improved significantly, climbing to 199th, up 147 places.
Benefiting from the influence of global sales leadership and the continuous rise of brand value, BYD launched a bombshell at the beginning of the new year, showing us that it firmly believes that electric mobility will replace traditional fuel vehicles. Qin PLUS Glory Edition, Destroyer 05 Glory Edition, Han Tang Glory Edition, Dolphin Glory Edition, Song PLUS Glory Edition, Seal DM-i Glory Edition, Song Pro DM-i Glory Edition and other models have been listed one after another, which is undoubtedly to promote a comprehensive change in the role between domestic automobiles and joint venture fuel vehicles with a firmer pace.
In addition to implementing a precision strategy in the domestic market, BYD also plans to become the first new energy vehicle brand to appear in the top European football competition on the occasion of the Euro 2024 competition, and is also the first Chinese automaker to establish a strategic partnership with the European Cup. It is worth mentioning that at present, BYD's new energy vehicles have successfully entered 78 countries and regions around the world, and in the future, the company will make every effort to expand the international market, and contribute to the realization of the global transformation of automobiles to electrification, as well as to promote Chinese automobiles to the global stage.