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BYD electric cars waiting to be loaded onto a ship are seen stacked at the international container terminal of Taicang Port in Suzhou, in China’s eastern Jiangsu province on February 8, 2024.

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In the race against Tesla for the global electric car market, Chinese automaker BYD is pushing hard overseas despite rising barriers to the U.S. market.

The Shenzhen-based company has already tested the waters in a number of countries with some immediate sales success, often just one year after entering. 

Given policy uncertainty around Chinese EV exports to major markets like the U.S. and Europe, BYD is seeking to bolster overseas sales by moving production to regions perceived as more friendly. Already, the company has factories in Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Hungary and Uzbekistan in the works. 

“They are targeting countries without very strong domestic auto industries, where they are likely to face less political pushback or headwinds from a policy perspective,” said CLSA research analyst Xiao Feng, noting that recent developments in the U.S. underscored the need for such an approach. 

The Biden administration last month said it’s begun investigating whether Chinese-made cars pose national security risks, and raised the possibility of restricting the vehicles. The U.S. has tried to support adoption of electric cars domestically, but sales penetration is well below that of China.

Most China EV makers, including BYD, have 'very limited U.S. volume exposure,' analyst says

BYD is moving quickly, beginning with Thailand, where the company expects its first factory outside China to be in operation by the end of this year. The automaker surpassed Toyota to grab the top spot for passenger car sales in Thailand in January, despite having no sales there just one year prior, according to data from Marklines.

Once operating, the Thailand factory will likely serve the rest of Southeast Asia. EY predicts the electric car market in the region will grow exponentially to at least $80 billion a year in sales in the next decade. 

BYD has established itself in Southeast Asia as the top-selling EV brand, grabbing more than one-third of the market last year after barely selling cars there previously, according to data from Counterpoint Research. 

Edge against Tesla

BYD sold 70,000 electric cars in Southeast Asia last year with a 35% market share, putting it ahead of rivals Vinfast and Tesla, according to data from Counterpoint Research.

One of BYD’s advantages over Tesla is a number of offerings in the mass market, as well as a mix of hybrid and battery-powered cars. Tesla exclusively makes more premium-priced, battery-only cars. Having hybrid options is beneficial for emerging markets where battery-charging infrastructure remains limited.

Southeast Asia will likely remain BYD’s strongest overseas market in the short term as the company pursues its goal of doubling its car exports from last year to 500,000 in 2024, according to Canalys automotive analyst Alvin Liu.

“The Southeast Asian EVs market is still in its early stages, and consumer habits need to be cultivated,” said Liu. “Cost-effectiveness” is particularly important, he added, with BYD’s Atto 3 and Dolphin models sold in the region at very competitive prices.

Why China is beating the U.S. in electric vehicles

The company is also investing $1.3 billion to build an electric car factory in Indonesia in 2024, local media reported in January. This year, BYD also reportedly plans to significantly increase the number of its stores in Singapore and the Philippines. 

The company did not respond to a request for comment about the reported plans. 

While BYD does not break out capital expenditure by country, it disclosed 81.52 billion yuan ($11.33 billion) in autos-related capex in the first six months of 2023, nearly double the 45.94 billion yuan reported for all of 2022.

In another contrast with Tesla’s direct-dealership model, BYD often relies on local distributors and partners for sales in countries outside China. For example, in late 2022, BYD signed a distribution agreement with Sime Darby Motors in Malaysia. 

Plan for the Americas 

While U.S. scrutiny on China’s electric vehicle dominance is only growing, BYD is expanding in Brazil and has its sights on Mexico, on the U.S. border.

The company’s Americas CEO Stella Li told Reuters BYD is considering plans for a factory in Mexico, where it has started selling more electric cars.

If BYD does build a factory in the country, that could make it a “beachhead for the Americas,” Bill Russo, founder and CEO of investment advisory firm Automobility, recently told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”

“Mexico is part of the USMCA so there is an opportunity to export perhaps from Mexico to North America,” he said, referring to the free trade agreement that the United States, Mexico and Canada enacted in 2020. 

It's a 'war of attrition' for Nio and other Chinese EV makers, says advisory firm

BYD does not plan to sell passenger cars to the U.S., Li reportedly said at the end of February.

The automaker did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

China remains by far BYD’s largest market. Out of more than 3 million new energy passenger vehicles the company produced last year, just over 242,000 went overseas.

The rapid growth of BYD and other Chinese electric car companies has other automakers worried.

In February, the Alliance for American Manufacturing released a report warning that low-cost Chinese imports could be an “extinction-level event for the U.S. auto sector” and called on Washington to prematurely block imports from Mexico.

That was just weeks after company releases confirmed that BYD was well ahead of Tesla in terms of vehicle production.

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How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

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How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

TikTok’s grip on the short-form video market is tightening, and the world’s biggest tech platforms are racing to catch up.

Since launching globally in 2016, ByteDance-owned TikTok has amassed over 1.12 billion monthly active users worldwide, according to Backlinko. American users spend an average of 108 minutes per day on the app, according to Apptoptia.

TikTok’s success has reshaped the social media landscape, forcing competitors like Meta and Google to pivot their strategies around short-form video. But so far, experts say that none have matched TikTok’s algorithmic precision.

“It is the center of the internet for young people,” said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at Emarketer. “It’s where they go for entertainment, news, trends, even shopping. TikTok sets the tone for everyone else.”

Platforms like Meta‘s Instagram Reels and Google’s YouTube Shorts have expanded aggressively, launching new features, creator tools and even considering separate apps just to compete. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, traditionally a professional networking site, is the latest to experiment with TikTok-style feeds. But with TikTok continuing to evolve, adding features like e-commerce integrations and longer videos, the question remains whether rivals can keep up.

“I’m scrolling every single day. I doom scroll all the time,” said TikTok content creator Alyssa McKay.

But there may a dark side to this growth.

As short-form content consumption soars, experts warn about shrinking attention spans and rising mental-health concerns, particularly among younger users. Researchers like Dr. Yann Poncin, associate professor at the Child Study Center at Yale University, point to disrupted sleep patterns and increased anxiety levels tied to endless scrolling habits.

“Infinite scrolling and short-form video are designed to capture your attention in short bursts,” Dr. Poncin said. “In the past, entertainment was about taking you on a journey through a show or story. Now, it’s about locking you in for just a few seconds, just enough to feed you the next thing the algorithm knows you’ll like.”

Despite sky-high engagement, monetizing short videos remains an uphill battle. Unlike long-form YouTube content, where ads can be inserted throughout, short clips offer limited space for advertisers. Creators, too, are feeling the squeeze.

“It’s never been easier to go viral,” said Enberg. “But it’s never been harder to turn that virality into a sustainable business.”

Last year, TikTok generated an estimated $23.6 billion in ad revenues, according to Oberlo, but even with this growth, many creators still make just a few dollars per million views. YouTube Shorts pays roughly four cents per 1,000 views, which is less than its long-form counterpart. Meanwhile, Instagram has leaned into brand partnerships and emerging tools like “Trial Reels,” which allow creators to experiment with content by initially sharing videos only with non-followers, giving them a low-risk way to test new formats or ideas before deciding whether to share with their full audience. But Meta told CNBC that monetizing Reels remains a work in progress.

While lawmakers scrutinize TikTok’s Chinese ownership and explore potential bans, competitors see a window of opportunity. Meta and YouTube are poised to capture up to 50% of reallocated ad dollars if TikTok faces restrictions in the U.S., according to eMarketer.

Watch the video to understand how TikTok’s rise sparked a short form video race.

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Elon Musk’s xAI Holdings in talks to raise $20 billion, Bloomberg News reports

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Elon Musk's xAI Holdings in talks to raise  billion, Bloomberg News reports

The X logo appears on a phone, and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Krakow, Poland, on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Elon Musk‘s xAI Holdings is in discussions with investors to raise about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The funding would value the company at over $120 billion, according to the report.

Musk was looking to assign “proper value” to xAI, sources told CNBC’s David Faber earlier this month. The remarks were made during a call with xAI investors, sources familiar with the matter told Faber. The Tesla CEO at that time didn’t explicitly mention any upcoming funding round, but the sources suggested xAI was preparing for a substantial capital raise in the near future.

The funding amount could be more than $20 billion as the exact figure had not been decided, the Bloomberg report added.

Artificial intelligence startup xAI didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment outside of U.S. business hours.

Faber Report: Elon Musk held call with current xAI investors, sources say

The AI firm last month acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and the social media platform at $33 billion.

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said on X, announcing the deal. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”

Read the full Bloomberg story here.

— CNBC’s Samantha Subin contributed to this report.

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Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

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Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Alphabet‘s stock gained 3% Friday after signaling strong growth in its search and advertising businesses amid a competitive artificial intelligence environment and uncertain macro backdrop.

GOOGL‘s pace of GenAI product roll-out is accelerating with multiple encouraging signals,” wrote Morgan Stanley‘s Brian Nowak. “Macro uncertainty still exists but we remain [overweight] given GOOGL’s still strong relative position and improving pace of GenAI enabled product roll-out.”

The search giant posted earnings of $2.81 per share on $90.23 billion in revenues. That topped the $89.12 billion in sales and $2.01 in EPS expected by LSEG analysts. Revenues grew 12% year-over-year and ahead of the 10% anticipated by Wall Street.

Net income rose 46% to $34.54 billion, or $2.81 per share. That’s up from $23.66 billion, or $1.89 per share, in the year-ago period. Alphabet said the figure included $8 billion in unrealized gains on its nonmarketable equity securities connected to its investment in a private company.

Adjusted earnings, excluding that gain, were $2.27 per share, according to LSEG, and topped analyst expectations.

Read more CNBC tech news

Alphabet shares have pulled back about 16% this year as it battles volatility spurred by mounting trade war fears and worries that President Donald Trump‘s tariffs could crush the global economy. That would make it more difficult for Alphabet to potentially acquire infrastructure for data centers powering AI models as it faces off against competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic to develop largely language models.

During Thursday’s call with investors, Alphabet suggested that it’s too soon to tally the total impact of tariffs. However, Google’s business chief Philipp Schindler said that ending the de minimis trade exemption in May, which created a loophole benefitting many Chinese e-commerce retailers, could create a “slight headwind” for the company’s ads business, specifically in the Asia-Pacific region. The loophole allows shipments under $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free.

Despite this backdrop, Alphabet showed steady growth in its advertising and search business, reporting $66.89 billion in revenues for its advertising unit. That reflected 8.5% growth from the year-ago period. The company reported $8.93 billion in advertising revenue for its YouTube business, shy of an $8.97 billion estimate from StreetAccount.

Alphabet’s “Search and other” unit rose 9.8% to $50.7 billion, up from $46.16 billion last year. The company said that its AI Overviews tool used in its Google search results page has accumulated 1.5 billion monthly users from a billion in October.

Bank of America analyst Justin Post said that Wall Street is underestimating the upside potential and “monetization ramp” from this tool and cloud demand fueled by AI.

“The strong 1Q search performance, along with constructive comments on Gemini [large language model] performance and [AI Overviews] adoption could help alleviate some investor concerns on AI competition,” Post wrote in a note.

WATCH: Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital’s Chris Ballard

Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital's Chris Ballard

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

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