Warren Buffett sells $47 million stake in Chinese EV company BYD

The world’s largest electric car manufacturer BYD saw its shares plunge nearly 13 percent after billionaire on Wednesday Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway has reduced its stake in the company.



Berkshire sold 1.33 million shares in the automaker (less than 1 percent of its stake) in BYD for about $47 million, according to a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Nikkei Asia reports.

There is much speculation that Buffett will soon sell his entire stake in BYD.

The sale came as BYD this week reported better-than-expected results for the first half of the year, with revenue of $21.7 billion, nearly 66 percent up on the same period last year.

The sale of Buffett’s stock came as for the first time, China’s BYD Auto became the top-selling EV brand, dethroning Elon Musk-run Tesla in Q2 2022.

During the second quarter, BYD Auto shipped more than 354,000 EV units, up 266 percent year-over-year.

According to Counterpoint Research, the company officially stopped manufacturing and selling combustion engine vehicles in March 2022 and has focused on developing BEVs and PHEVs.

More than 60 percent of BYD’s revenue during the quarter came from its top three models: BYD Song, BYD Han and BYD Qin.

The company is slowly penetrating the European market. It has already started operations in Norway and is looking for operations in Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.

China remained the market leader in electric vehicle sales, followed by Europe and the US.

Electric vehicle sales in China rose nearly 92 percent year-on-year to 1.24 million units, from just 0.64 million units in the second quarter of 2021.

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