BYD sold 4,780 vehicles in the Philippines in 2024, reported 26,122 in 2025, then sold another 28,399 in the first eight months of 2026, already more than its full-year total for 2025, according to the company. Inside that 2026 total, BYD says 22,555 vehicles were DM-i plug-in hybrids, or about 79% of its Philippine sales. Full battery-electric vehicles accounted for 5,844.

That makes BYD’s rise less a story about Filipinos suddenly switching to full EVs and more a story about plug-in hybrids becoming a large part of the country’s electrified-car market.

The boom is mostly plug-in hybrids

A plug-in hybrid can drive on battery power but still has a gasoline engine, reducing dependence on public charging without giving up the option of fuel for longer trips.

That format fits concerns already visible in Philippine consumer research. BusinessWorld, reporting on Deloitte’s 2026 automotive consumer study, said 34% of Filipino respondents were interested in hybrid and electric vehicles, up from 27% a year earlier. Among respondents who preferred electrified vehicles, 62% cited lower fuel costs, while 48% cited a lack of charging stations as a drawback. Those figures are not a survey of BYD buyers, so they do not prove why people chose DM-i models, but they help explain why a vehicle that can use electricity without depending entirely on chargers is relevant in the Philippine market.

The pattern also predates this year’s fuel shock. The Sealion 6 DM-i, launched locally in July 2024, accounted for 2,669 of BYD’s 4,780 Philippine sales that year. Plug-in hybrids were already central to BYD’s breakout before fuel prices became a major 2026 concern.

BYD entered mainstream price bands

BYD also brought electrified vehicles into price ranges familiar to mainstream car buyers. Its July 2026 price list put the Seal 5 DM-i Essential at P948,000, the Atto 2 DM-i Dynamic at P1.048 million, the Sealion 5 DM-i at P1.268 million, and the Sealion 6 DM-i at P1.598 million. The battery-electric Seagull was listed at P968,000. BYD publishes its current Philippine pricing here.

For context, Toyota lists the Corolla Cross G HEV at P1.514 million and the Yaris Cross S HEV at P1.610 million. These are not perfect like-for-like comparisons, but they show that BYD is competing inside established mass-market price territory rather than only at the premium end.

Policy has also lowered some structural costs and ownership friction for electrified vehicles. Executive Order 62 extended zero tariff treatment through 2028 to covered battery-electric, hybrid and plug-in-hybrid vehicles. The Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act provides incentives including exemptions from vehicle volume reduction programs. These measures predate most of BYD’s recent growth, so they help explain the conditions around the market rather than the timing of the surge on their own.

The brand also became much harder to miss

Sales growth happened alongside an unusually fast retail expansion. BYD said its network grew from 25 dealerships at the end of 2024 to 79 at the end of 2025, then reported 81 dealerships in 2026. An Ayala SEC filing gives a slightly different end-2024 count of 27, but either figure leaves the same broad result: the network roughly tripled in a year.

BYD has also run repeated mall-based Tech Tour and test-drive events in places including Nuvali, Glorietta, SM Megamall, Trinoma, Clark and Cebu. The “everywhere” effect is therefore partly literal. BYD has sold many more cars, so there are more on the road, while also multiplying the number of places where people see the brand before they buy one.

ACMobility, Ayala’s mobility platform and BYD’s Philippine distributor, supplied dealership, service, parts, financing and charging infrastructure around that expansion. Public evidence does not tell us how much Ayala’s involvement changes an individual buyer’s decision, but BYD did not have to build its local retail and ownership network from scratch.

BYD is riding a broader shift

The broader market was moving in the same direction. Among CAMPI and TMA member brands, which do not include BYD, electrified-vehicle sales rose 132.7% in the first half of 2026 while total vehicle sales among those members fell 11.4%, according to industry data reported by BusinessMirror.

The fuel-price shock likely strengthened that shift in 2026. Philippine automotive industry officials have linked higher fuel costs to changing vehicle preferences, but it cannot explain BYD’s rise by itself. The brand’s biggest jump came in 2025, and the Sealion 6 DM-i was already driving sales in 2024.

BYD feels suddenly everywhere because two things changed at once: its sales climbed rapidly, led overwhelmingly by plug-in hybrids, while its physical retail presence expanded almost as quickly. The public evidence supports a layered explanation involving a PHEV-heavy lineup that fits charging constraints, prices that reach mainstream buyers, favorable policy, a much larger dealer footprint and a broader shift toward electrified vehicles. What the available data cannot tell us is exactly how much each factor mattered to individual buyers.