Chinese Auto Stocks Fall on Fears of Fresh Price War
BYD's Hong Kong-listed shares declined 8.6% on Monday while its Shenzhen-listed shares fell 5.9%. Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology shed 8.45% and Geely dropped 9.5%. Li Auto and NIO were off 3.2% and 3.0%, respectively.
BYD, China's biggest automaker, last week unveiled discounts of 10%-34% until June 30 on 22 Dynasty and Ocean models.
BYD's Ocean series now starts at 55,800 yuan, equivalent to $7,770, for its Seagull hatchback, down from 69,800 yuan previously, according to a poster shared by Zhang Zhuo, head of sales for BYD's Ocean series, on Chinese social-media platform Weibo on Friday.
The Dynasty series now starts at 63,800 yuan for the Qin compact plug-in hybrid sedan, down from 79,800 yuan previously, a poster shared by Lu Tian, head of BYD's Dynasty series, showed.
The Seal dual-motor hybrid sedan saw the biggest price cut—34%–taking the starting price to 102,800 yuan.
'Such action triggered further concerns on a new round of price competition coming back,' Nomura auto analyst Joel Ying said. Automakers such as Geely and Leapmotor, which target the mass market and are direct competitors to BYD's discounted models, were the most vulnerable and therefore saw steeper share declines, he added.
China's automakers have been known to slash prices in exchange for market share. EV makers engaged in a yearlong price war from 2023 to 2024 amid oversupply and soft consumer sentiment in China. In April 2024 alone, prices were cut or incentives offered on more than 40 EV models, amounting to some of the largest-ever price reductions in China's auto market.
Meanwhile, China's stock levels at dealerships rose to 3.5 million cars last month, or 57 inventory days, higher than the same period in the past two years, the China Passenger Car Association's secretary general, Cui Dongshu, said last week. The rise in inventory adds to pressure as May to July is usually a low season for car sales, he added.
BYD sold 1.0 million vehicles in the first quarter, up 60% from a year earlier, beating Tesla to remain the world's top EV seller for the quarter. After the price cut last week, Citi analysts noted that footfall at BYD dealerships surged 30%-40% over the weekend compared with the previous weekend.
Analysts expect BYD's peers to follow in its footsteps. Changan has already announced a cash discount of 25,000 yuan in addition to a replacement subsidy for its Deepal-S07 model.
Though the market worries about declining market share for BYD's peers, Citi's auto team expects EV players with products priced below 200,000 yuan to retain robust sales growth on mild competition.
Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com
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