BYD looks up to Rolls-Royce

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BYD looks up to Rolls-Royce

outside the page

2026.11.10 17:51

· From Guangdong

Full text 2745 words

Text | In addition to printing, author | Huahua

BYD has brought its admiration to the home of Rolls-Royce.

On November 7, the world premiere of Yangwang Dingyao, an ultra-luxury executive flagship sedan, was launched in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

This is the first time that Wangwang has held a press conference overseas with a complete brand image. The estimated price of the new car is about 2 million yuan. The Shanhe Dingyun limited edition has been pre-ordered and is expected to be delivered in the second quarter of 2027.

It targets the ultra-luxury market where Rolls-Royce and Bentley are located.

For BYD, it knows that relying on its past technology and price advantages to go global will hit a ceiling sooner or later.

This time, taking Yangwang to Abu Dhabi not only hides BYD's global market ambitions, but also adds a new test question for the high-endization of Chinese car companies.

1. Why Abu Dhabi?

BYD chose Abu Dhabi not just for fun.

The Middle East has always been an important consumer market for global ultra-luxury cars. There are mature high-net-worth people here, as well as a long-term consumption base accumulated by brands such as Rolls-Royce and Bentley.

For local consumers, cars, in addition to transportation, also carry the expression of wealth, identity and social status.

Abu Dhabi not only has the purchasing power, but also has the consumption environment to test the value of luxury brands.

BYD isn't new here.

In the past few years, as China's new energy vehicles go overseas, the UAE has become an important market for BYD in the Middle East. In the first three quarters of this year, BYD's sales in the UAE reached 11,495 vehicles.

For a Chinese car company that previously relied mainly on new energy products and price advantages to develop overseas markets, this is already a market worth continuing to explore.

But the emergence of Ding Yao changed the focus of going overseas.

In the past, BYD's test in overseas markets was whether it could sell Chinese new energy vehicles. Today, what Yangwang is trying to enter is the world's most expensive automobile consumer market.

Dingyao directly completed its world premiere in Abu Dhabi, which shows that Yangwang hopes to enter the competitive context of global ultra-luxury cars from the beginning, rather than first completing its positioning in the Chinese market and then looking for overseas opportunities.

Of course, a press conference cannot prove that Yangwang has been recognized by ultra-luxury consumers around the world. But BYD obviously hopes to use such actions to bring high-end brands looking up from the Chinese market into the global discussion of ultra-luxury cars.

This choice is also closely related to BYD's current business situation.

2. Under domestic pressure, overseas countries take over

If you only look at BYD's financial report for the first three quarters, it is difficult to say that this is a comfortable report card.

In the first three quarters of 2026, BYD's operating income was 566.304 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.01%; net profit attributable to the parent company was 22.345 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.24%. In the third quarter, the single-quarter revenue was 221.488 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.59%; the net profit attributable to the parent company was 10.020 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28.08%. There was improvement in a single quarter, but overall revenue barely increased in the first three quarters, and profits were still under pressure.

Even more troublesome is the sales structure. Cumulative sales in the first ten months of 2026 were 3.6217 million vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 2.16%. To put it bluntly, BYD's scale advantage still exists, but the domestic market is no longer able to provide the rapid growth it used to.

However, overseas shows a different picture.

In the first three quarters of 2026, BYD's overseas sales were approximately 1.343 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of more than 90%, accounting for more than 40% of total sales in the same period. In October, BYD exported 170,200 new energy vehicles.

According to BYD's previously disclosed cumulative exports, exports from January to October 2026 were approximately 1.5074 million vehicles, exceeding the whole of last year.

Behind the numbers, BYD's overseas expectations and positioning have changed.

In March this year, BYD mentioned the target of overseas sales reaching 1.5 million vehicles in 2026 when communicating with analysts, and later raised the possibility of hitting 1.8 million vehicles.

Reuters quoted people familiar with the matter as saying at the time that BYD also hoped that overseas markets could contribute about half of the company's business in the future.

This goal is not difficult to understand. The growth space and profit margins of the domestic market are being squeezed, and overseas markets have become an important support for BYD's next stage of growth.

There is another piece of data that is easily overlooked.

BYD's operating income in the first half of 2026 was 344.815 billion yuan, of which overseas operating income was 181.3 billion yuan, accounting for approximately 52.6%. What we are talking about here is the group's overseas operating income, which does not equal the proportion of overseas automobile sales, but it is enough to illustrate the weight of overseas business in the company's income structure.

When overseas markets begin to assume greater growth tasks, BYD has to answer a new question: Is the low-price strategy of the past still effective?

3. Selling a car is easy, but selling a brand is difficult

In the past few years, China’s automobile industry has adopted a very effective strategy for going global: new energy technology, supply chain efficiency, and price advantage.

This is especially true for BYD. From batteries to electric drives, from vehicle manufacturing to parts supply, vertical integration gives it a relatively complete cost control system. Coupled with the rapid iteration of new energy products, Chinese cars can use more competitive prices to provide product experiences that traditional brands in the past required higher costs to produce.

This style of play helped BYD quickly open up overseas markets.

But after sales reach a certain stage, price alone cannot support the long-term development of a brand. Price can help you get the first batch of users, but it can’t get you long-term loyalty.

More realistically, low prices also have ceilings.

If a brand carries a cost-effectiveness label for a long time, consumers will form a fixed perception. If you later launch a more expensive and technologically advanced car, you will also have to prove why you sell it at the price.

This is also the reason why BYD wants to build multiple brands. Dynasty and Ocean are responsible for the scale and mass market, moving towards the mid-to-high end, Fangbao enters the personalized and professional market, and Yangwang stands at the top of the brand system.

The task of looking up is to break the ceiling for BYD. It wants to prove that BYD can not only build high-performance cars, but also support a brand that can independently sell for 2 million yuan.

But the premise is that Yangwang must first become a super luxury brand that is truly recognized by consumers.

4. Technology can catch up, but brands must endure

BYD has enough technical confidence to build a 2 million yuan flagship sedan. Yi Sifang, Yunnan, and Blade Battery, as well as its continued accumulation of electrification technology, are all bargaining chips for it to compete with traditional ultra-luxury brands in the market.

But technology leadership does not mean brand leadership. These are two different things.

A car sold for 2 million yuan depends on the strength of the product. A brand's long-term ability to sell at high prices relies on continued creation of brand value.

Rolls-Royce's high premium comes from its long-established brand order: scarce product supply, distinctive status symbol, and stable price system. Consumers have long been buying not just cars, but also the value represented by the brand.

It is this wall that you look up to challenge. What it really has to pass is BYD's own three hurdles.

First, it is how to make large-scale manufacturing and brand scarcity compatible.

BYD is best at large-scale manufacturing, vertical integration, supply chain control, and platform-based research and development, allowing it to quickly launch products, control costs, and increase sales. But ultra-luxury brands need another set of logic: products must be unique, users must have exclusive experiences, and the brand must maintain a sense of scarcity.

How can a company that relies on scale and efficiency operate a brand that requires a sense of scarcity?

This is a problem that cannot be avoided by looking up.

Secondly, just because the technology is good doesn’t mean the brand is valuable. Yi Sifang and Yun Nian can be recognized by those who look up to them, but technological advantages come in cycles, and brand equity must be accumulated over time. When consumers no longer find a certain technology novel, there must be other reasons for people to continue to choose it.

More importantly, how to balance group resources and independent brands.

BYD has a complete brand matrix, with Dynasty, Ocean, Denza, Fangbao and Yangwang covering different markets. The group can provide technical, supply chain and manufacturing support to Yangwang, but Yangwang must establish its own brand value.

If consumers always understand it as a more expensive BYD, it will be difficult for it to truly enter the competition of ultra-luxury brands.

BYD has brought China's automobile manufacturing capabilities to the price range of 2 million yuan.

Next, it has to face a more difficult question to answer: when consumers are willing to spend 2 million yuan to buy a car, why should they choose a brand from BYD?

【Outside the page】Words:

Competition in the automobile industry will eventually lead to value competition.

Chinese car companies have changed the global car manufacturing landscape. The next thing to fight for is the right to speak value in the global automobile market.

Building a 2 million yuan car is a breakthrough.

Let the world remember a Chinese ultra-luxury brand, which is another long journey.

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