China’s BYD pushes into emerging markets amid policy uncertainty in the U.S., Europe

Published

1 year ago

March 18, 2024

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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.

STR | AFP | Getty Images

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.

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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.

Europe and other markets

A global push to go electric has given Chinese automakers potential market opportunities, especially as growth slows at home.

“BYD needs to look for more overseas opportunities in other regions where the EV penetration will accelerate with infrastructure development for its long-term sustainable growth, not losing share against the US and European automakers,” said Liz Lee, associate director at Counterpoint Research.

BYD announced late last year it would open a factory in Hungary, and in January said production would start in three years.

The news came just months after the European Union announced a probe into the role of subsidies in China-made electric cars.

BYD is also selling cars in Australia, the Middle East and Africa, and in January announced the launch of production at its jointly owned facility in Uzbekistan.

Technology

Here’s how to turn off public posting on the Meta AI app

Published

1 hour ago

June 13, 2025

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Here's how to turn off public posting on the Meta AI app

This photo illustration created Jan. 7, 2025, shows an image of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and an image of the Meta logo.

Drew Angerer | Afp | Getty Images

AI generated images of women kissing while mud wrestling and President Donald Trump eating poop are some of the conversations users are unknowingly sharing publicly through Meta’s newly launched AI app.

The company rolled out the Meta AI app in April, putting it in direct competition with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. But the tool has recently garnered some negative publicity and sparked privacy concerns over some of the wacky — and personal — prompts being shared publicly from user accounts.

Besides the mud wrestlers and Trump eating poop, some of the examples CNBC found include a user prompting Meta’s AI tool to generate photos of the character Hello Kitty “tying a rope in a loop hanging from a barn rafter, standing on a stool.” Another user whose prompt was posted publicly asked Meta AI to send what appears to be a veterinarian bill to another person.

“sir, your home address is listed on there,” a user commented on the photo of the veterinarian bill.

Prompts put into the Meta AI tool appear to show up publicly on the app by default, but users can adjust settings on the app to protect their privacy.

Here’s how to do it:

To start, click on your profile photo on the top right corner of the screen and scroll down to data and privacy. Then head to the “suggesting your prompts on other apps” tab. This should include Facebook and Instagram. Once there, click the toggle feature for the apps that you want to keep your prompts from being shared on.

After, go back to the main data and privacy page and click “manage your information.” Select “make all your public prompts visible only to you” and click the “apply to all” function. You can also delete your prompt history there.

Meta has beefed up its recent bets on AI to improve its offerings to compete against megacap peers and leading AI contenders, such as Google and OpenAI. This week the company invested $14 billion in startup Scale AI and tapped its CEO Alexandr Wang to help lead the company’s AI strategy.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

WATCH: Meta’s one of AI’s leaders not a laggard, says Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman

Technology

Amazon reorganizes health-care business in latest bid to crack multitrillion-dollar market

Published

2 hours ago

June 13, 2025

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Amazon reorganizes health-care business in latest bid to crack multitrillion-dollar market

A One Medical clinic location is pictured in Emeryville, California on February 16, 2024.

Loren Elliott | The Washington Post | Getty Images

For the better part of a decade, Amazon has been trying to carve it’s way into the U.S. health-care market, through billions of dollars worth of acquisitions, big-name hires and high-profile partnerships. It’s been a slog at times, and the company’s long-term strategy hasn’t always been clear.

Following a series of executive departures, Amazon is now restructuring its health business, telling CNBC that Amazon Health Services will be divided into six new units, with a goal of creating a simpler structure.

As part of the effort, the company has tapped a number of longtime Amazon leaders and elevated some One Medical executives to oversee the divisions. Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services told CNBC in an interview that the company has been working on the overhaul for the past several months.

“Our leadership team has been focused on simplifying our structure to move faster and continue to innovate effectively,” Lindsay said in a video chat. “One of the problems we’re trying to solve is the fragmented experience for patients and customers that’s common in healthcare.”

Amazon said it hasn’t conducted broad layoffs as part of the changes.

Ambitious efforts

Amazon has for years been on a mission to crack the multitrillion-dollar U.S. health-care industry, which is notoriously complex and inefficient.

While it had long served providers and others in health care with its cloud-based technology, Amazon’s first big splash directly into the market came in 2018 with the the acquisition of online pharmacy PillPack for about $750 million. Two years later, it launched its own offering called Amazon Pharmacy.

The company then bought One Medical for $3.9 billion in 2023, among its largest acquisitions ever, giving Amazon access to a chain of brick-and-mortar primary care clinics and a robust membership base.

There have been some major setbacks. The company shuttered its telehealth service, Amazon Care, in 2022. That came a year after it disbanded Haven, the joint health-care venture between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase. The announcement of Haven in 2018 sent shockwaves through the medical world, pushing down shares of health-care companies on fears about how the combined muscle of leaders in technology and finance could wring costs out of the system.

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In the areas where Amazon continues to operate, competition is fierce and, in the case of primary care, margins are very slim.

PillPack founders TJ Parker and Elliot Cohen, who left Amazon in 2022, recently launched a new health-care marketplace called General Medicine that will compete with Amazon. Mishra confirmed to STAT News that she advised the nascent startup. Amazon declined to comment on whether Mishra’s involvement with General Medicine was related to her departure.

Lindsay characterized the recent departures as part of the natural evolution of Amazon’s health business. He added that there’s “no shortage of depth of talent” within his organization.

“We’re a fast-evolving organization because the opportunity is so big,” Lindsay said.

Under its new structure, Amazon Health Services will be focused around the six groups, or what the company calls “pillars.”

One Medical Clinical Care Delivery, led by Dr. Andrew Diamond
One Medical Clinical Operations and Performance, led by Suzanne Hansen
AHS Strategic Growth and Network Development, led by John Singerling
AHS Store, Tech and Marketing, led by Prakash Bulusu
AHS Compliance, led by Kim Otte
AHS Pharmacy Services, led by John Love

Amazon declined to share financial figures for its health business, but Lindsay said it is seeing “very strong growth” across the offerings.

One Medical went public in 2020, and it was still losing money when it was bought by Amazon. At the end of 2022 in its last quarter as a standalone entity, it reported a net loss of $101.1 million on revenue of $272.4 million.

Since joining Amazon, One Medical has been working to open new offices in states including New Jersey, New York and Ohio.

Amazon said in January of 2024 that its pharmacy business “doubled the number of customers” it served in the past year, though it didn’t share specific figures. The company is opening pharmacies in 20 new cities this year, and about 45% of U.S. customers will be eligible for same-day medication delivery.

“If we can make one thing a little bit easier for a lot of people, we’ll save them a lot of time, a lot of money, and some lives,” Lindsay said. “And if we stack these changes up over time, it’ll feel like a reinvention.”

WATCH: Amazon Pharmacy VP: Trying to make it easier for patients to get medication

Technology

Archer drops as much as 15% on $850 million share sale following Trump air taxi pilot program

Published

3 hours ago

June 13, 2025

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Archer drops as much as 15% on 0 million share sale following Trump air taxi pilot program

Archer Aviation co-founders Brett Adcock (L) and Adam Goldstein (R) unveil the Archer Maker on June 10, 2021 in Hawthorne, California.

Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

Archer Aviation‘s stock dropped as much as 15% on Friday after the air taxi maker said it sold $850 million worth of shares.

The electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle, or eVTOL, company said Thursday it plans to use the financing to support new infrastructure and the rollout of an artificial intelligence-based aviation software platform. The money will also support its Launch Edition program, including an official partnership to provide air taxi services during the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Archer said the funding round included the sale of 85 million shares at $10 apiece and gives the company a pro forma liquidity position of roughly $2 billion.

“We now have the strongest balance sheet in the sector and the resources we need to execute both here in the U.S. and abroad,” said founder and CEO Adam Goldstein in a release. “Archer’s future couldn’t be any brighter.”

The stock offering comes after President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order that created a pilot program to support developing and deploying more eVTOL vehicles in the U.S. Shares of both Archer and competitor Joby Aviation rallied this week on the heels of the news.

Demand for eVTOL companies has ballooned in recent years as developers tout the technology’s ability to reduce emissions and cut down traffic congestion. The technology faces numerous regulatory and safety hurdles in the process.

Archer has already partnered with United Airlines to roll out an airport air taxi service. Last month, competitor Joby Aviation said it received the first $250 million from a $500 million contract with carmaker Toyota to support certifying and producing eVTOLs.

Archer is slated to display its Midnight eVTOL aircraft at the Paris Air Show this month. The United Arab Emirates will be the company’s first launch market.