Introduction: Compared to sales volume, BYD pays more attention to brand building through technology, products, and services in Japan.

(Text / Observer Network, Zhou Shengming; Editor / Gao Xin)

On October 30th, during the 2025 Tokyo Motor Show, Liu Xueliang, General Manager of BYD Asia-Pacific Automotive Sales Division, stated that although BYD was founded only 30 years ago, it has had overseas experience for 20 years. "We have set up offices abroad as early as in Europe, Japan, and the United States. Among them, Japan was the first market to start. Initially, BYD entered Japan through battery business," he said.

Liu Xueliang recalled that in 2014, BYD launched its first electric bus in Japan. But at that time, Japanese netizens generally looked down on Chinese manufacturing.

He said, "BYD has always adhered to the attitude of 'perseverance' and 'confidence' in overseas expansion - even if we make mistakes, we will become stronger through constant trial and error. Through BYD, many overseas users have come to know Chinese companies and Chinese quality, and have redefined the voice of 'Chinese brands' at certain key points."

Time has come to 2025, and BYD has become the world's top automaker in new energy vehicle sales, and the Japanese market can no longer ignore its presence.

On October 28th, BYD officially launched its first K-car model, BYD Racco. As the top-selling K-car manufacturer in Japan, Suzuki's President Suzuki Shunhiko told "Nikkei Chinese News" on October 28th that he believes BYD is a "huge threat". However, he also said, "New competition has begun. I hope to participate in it through mutual encouragement and healthy competition."

Welcoming the arrival of BYD with a sense of crisis is a contradictory emotion. Liu Xueliang recalled that in 2021, when BYD first brought passenger cars into the Japanese market, the feedback it received was similar - on one hand, Japanese consumers hoped to stimulate the Japanese automotive industry with BYD products, and on the other hand, they felt a sense of crisis about the arrival of outsiders.

For BYD, the Japanese market is both open and conservative. On one hand, Japan imposes zero tariffs on imported vehicles; on the other hand, there is a high level of loyalty from Japanese consumers towards local brands. In this context, gaining the favor of Japanese consumers is not easy for BYD.

To this end, Liu Xueliang said that BYD chooses to gain trust through products - "When the BYD Dolphin entered the Japanese market, it specially redesigned the roof height according to the needs of local consumers. This kind of detailed optimization from the consumer's perspective is not common among European brands, which is exactly the core of the engineering culture of BYD engineers."

However, compared to the relatively aggressive development goals in the domestic market, BYD appears more modest in Japan. Compared to the scale of sales, what BYD focuses on is actually completing brand building through technology, products, and services.

"Although the competition in the overseas market is not yet fully developed, if we want to truly represent Chinese brands and go further, our road is still long," Liu Xueliang said: "Brand building has no shortcut - Japanese cars took 60 years to establish their image in Southeast Asia, and Chinese brands should be the same, taking one step at a time, solidly and steadily. Brand building is not a quick battle."

In addition, BYD has not set specific sales targets for the Japanese market. Instead, it has clearly planned the construction of a sales network in Japan. "The current core task is to establish 100 dealer networks by 2025, and we expect to achieve 80 this year," Liu Xueliang introduced.

Liu Xueliang said that for future development in Japan, "long-termism" is the keyword for BYD: "The scale of the Japanese dealer network is small, but Japanese investors value long-termism. They are not looking for whether they can profit in the same year, but rather investing in the brand itself. Once a store is built, they usually observe for 3 to 5 years, so we naturally need to serve this market well."

This article is an exclusive article from Observer Network. Without permission, it cannot be reprinted.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7566977363595035179/

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