Chinese automaker BYD has acquired a reputation for some pretty ambitious talk in recent years, but the firm missed its Chinese sales target in 2010.
At the end of 2009, a boastful BYD announced that they would be able to clear sales of 800,000 vehicles in China for 2010. But by the middle of the year that goal was already looking tough, with only 230,000 sales gained by June. The target was lowered it to a more attainable 600,000 vehicles, but BYD have missed this goal too.
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By the end of December 2010 BYD had sold 519,806 vehicles, some 80,000 short of its 600,000 units goal and well over 200,000 units short of its original 800,000 sales goal.
“2010 has not been a smooth year for BYD,” says Ash Sutcliffe, of Qingdao-based website China Car Times. “For example, they had factory land issues which saw the government confiscate BYD factories and land in BYD’s original home base of Xi’an.”
BYD’s Sales manager Mr Xia Zhi Bing has announced that he will apologise to BYD’s car dealers due to BYD’s ‘poor performance in certain areas’. Several BYD dealerships in the South West of China have pulled out of the network citing that there were too many problems with BYD and too little profit to be made.
“Perhaps BYD really should back away from the world’s biggest car company dream,” Sutcliffe wryly observes.
