BYD Company: From Shenzhen Battery Startup to 4.6-Million-Car-a-Year Conglomerate

BYD Company Limited started out in February 1995 as a Shenzhen rechargeable-battery maker set up by Wang Chuanfu and Lu Xiangyang. Three decades on, the Pingshan-headquartered group has become a global conglomerate whose product lines run from automobiles and auto components to batteries, photovoltaic systems, handsets, semiconductors, forklifts and even monorail transit.

The car-making arm, BYD Auto, sits alongside a web of other units: BYD Electronics (roughly 65.76% owned), BYD Semiconductor, BYD Transit Solutions and the FinDreams family of parts suppliers spanning batteries, powertrains, technology and precision manufacturing. The group also runs the SkyRail monorail and SkyShuttle transit businesses plus its own cargo shipping operation.

The numbers underline the scale: 4.60 million vehicles built in 2025 and 155.7 GWh of EV batteries produced in 2024. Revenue hit ¥804 billion (about US$112.8 billion) in 2025, with net income of ¥32.6 billion and total assets of ¥883.7 billion, while the workforce stood near 869,600 people as of December 2025.

Wang Chuanfu remains chairman and CEO and the largest individual shareholder at 16.9%, with co-founder Lu Xiangyang at 13.0%; Stella Li is executive vice president and Wolfgang Egger chief design officer. The company is dual listed in Hong Kong (1211) and Shenzhen (002594), and its history includes Berkshire Hathaway's investment and a long-running dispute with Foxconn.