BYD has rapidly become a top-three auto brand in Australia, and it’s aiming to secure future sales growth by expanding its presence in the fleet market alongside its strong performance among private buyers.
While BYD Australia chief operating officer Stephen Collins says he’s pleased with the Chinese brand’s fleet sales growth over the past year, he acknowledges there’s still work to be done to reduce the company’s existing skew toward private buyers.
“I’m comfortable, but I think there’s still opportunity – there’s always opportunities,” he told CarExpert.
“We’ve said pretty actively that we’re very strong in retail; fleet is where we want to grow more. If we sat here this time last year, fleet would have been seven or eight per cent of our mix. It’s now 20 per cent of our mix, and we know it can be more.
“Our aspiration is to get to probably around mid-30 per cent mix of fleet.”
Indeed, BYD’s fleet sales have grown considerably in the past 12 months, and the brand’s intent to grow its fleet business isn’t particularly surprising given rival Chinese brands like Chery and GWM have long had greater fleet-market penetration.
In fact, BYD had the greatest percentage of private buyers of any top 10 brand in Australia last year. Of its 52,415 sales in 2025, 82.8 per cent went to private buyers, 15.9 per cent to businesses, and the remainder to government and rental fleet buyers.
The brands with the next-highest skew towards private buyers were GWM (62.5 per cent) and Mazda (59.7 per cent).
“Whether we can look at certain models or whatever for specific fleet use – we’re looking at Seal 6, [which] we think is a really good option for some fleets. Shark, obviously,” Mr Collins said.
“It’s Shark 6 Dynamic, Performance, and although it’s still young in the market, Seal 6. We’re selling Sealion 7s, Sealion 8s to some fleets, so it’s a real mixture.
“But certainly, Shark cab/chassis is an important part of that, and I think we’ll keep growing into next year. I think we’ve filled out the range a lot, but I don’t think that work’s quite done yet. I think there are still some segments that we can do some good work in.”
Asked whether fleet sales growth would come via the introduction of new nameplates or additional variants of existing models, Mr Collins kept the door open to all options.
“It could be a bit of both. We’ll have more to say about that probably towards the end of this year into early next year, but yeah, I think there’s always opportunity,” he said.
Alongside its plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and electric (EV) passenger cars, BYD has introduced a small selection of more fleet-oriented model variants of late. Most notable is the cab/chassis Shark 6 Dynamic, and the company recently announced pricing for the M9 PHEV people mover.
Mr Collins also reiterated BYD’s work to strengthen its Australian dealer network, which currently includes 120 retailers. He expects that number will increase to 150 by the end of 2026, and 200 by the end of 2027.
“If you do the maths, that’s a couple a week that we’re opening, so it’s a pretty rapid rate. We’re currently expanding primarily in provincial and rural areas. Most of the metro areas, we’re pretty happy with,” he said.
“Again, I think that’s a part of our strategy to really embed ourselves in local communities. We see that rural representation as being really critical to the future, so that’s what we’re investing in now.
“Our dealer partners are really aligned with us in making sure that we’re opening sales, service, and parts outlets in pretty much every single one of those [areas] to support customers, not just in the sale of the car.”
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