By Jiahui Huang

BYD and a host of other Chinese automakers reported robust sales in March, backed by government subsidies and continued interest in EV purchases in the world's second-largest economy.

The world's largest EV maker BYD said Tuesday that its March new energy vehicle sales rose 25% to 377,420 units, bringing its first-quarter sales to more than 1 million units at 1,000,804 units. Among them, it sold 166,109 units of battery electric vehicles in March.

Hybrid-vehicle specialist Li Auto's March deliveries rose 26.5% to 36,674 vehicles. Its first quarter deliveries rose 15.5% to 92,864 units, in line with the company's forecast range of between 88,000 to 93,000 vehicles.

The robust performance of major Chinese automakers come as the market saw some support from the government's trade-in subsidies and corporate promotions and marketing efforts following the Lunar New Year.

Guangzhou-based XPeng, a company known for its advanced assisted driving technology, notably outperformed its domestic peers--with total deliveries up by more than three-fold to 33,205 units for March. For the quarter, deliveries quadrupled compared to a year earlier, having delivered 94,008 cars for the period.

XPeng's robust sales come amid heightened customer interest surrounding its Mona M03 model, which has further boosted the emerging EV brand.

Meanwhile, its rival NIO's deliveries rose 26.7% to 15,039 units in March, bringing the total first-quarter deliveries to 42,094 units, up 40.1%. It delivered 10,219 units of its NIO brand and 4,820 units of its Onvo brand for the month.

Geely Automobile also saw strong sales growth for the month, as its total deliveries rose 54% to 232,177 unit, bringing the total sales for the quarter to 703,824 units.

Zeekr Group, a new brand after the merger of Zeekr and Lynk&Co, reached total deliveries of 40,715 vehicles for the month.

Chinese automakers face an intensifying price war while also grappling with competition in advanced autonomous driving features, with BYD in February releasing its "God's Eye," an assisted driving system for mass-market models.

Write to Jiahui Huang at jiahui.huang@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 01, 2025 06:35 ET (10:35 GMT)

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