BYD has come a long way over the past five years and has particularly ambitious plans to crack into the Japanese market.
Japan is currently the world’s fourth-largest car market, so it’s little wonder why BYD wants to make its presence known in the Land of the Rising Sun. However, Japanese carmakers hold more than a 90% share of all new car sales in the country, with many overseas car brands having tried and failed to capture a significant slice of the market.
While recently speaking at a dealer conference in Tokyo, BYD founder Wang Chuanfu revealed that the brand would launch in Japan in January 2024 and by 2025, aims to be selling 30,000 electric vehicles annually in the country. It expects to have 100 dealerships across Japan by 2025, too.
Nikkei Asia notes that the Japanese car industry considers dealerships selling 200 vehicles a year well above the average and for BYD to achieve its aims, its dealers will each have to sell around 300 cars a year. The Chinese marque had originally planned to launch in Japan through an online sales model but has changed plans to focus on dealerships to better familiarize local consumers with the brand.
“It is precisely because we’re in Japan, where nobody knows our brand, that we should bring people in contact with vehicles and dealers,” BYD’s Asia Pacific general manager and BYD Japan president Liu Xueliang. “Japanese consumers are abundantly sensitive toward autos, and they would be difficult to capture through online channels.”
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BYD has already started the process of establishing a large dealer network in Japan. To do so, it is signing agency contracts with established dealers and sellers and currently has roughly 50 locations across the country.
The first BYD model to land in Japan is the Dolphin, priced from 3.63 million yen or around $25,000. It undercuts the Nissan Leaf in price while offering a longer range and much more up-to-date technologies.
