BYD Shark 6 pushes past Isuzu D-Max in Australia's top 10 best-sellers

The BYD Shark 6 is off to a strong start in Australia, outselling numerous established rivals and becoming the sixth best-selling model overall in February 2025.

The plug-in hybrid (PHEV) ute stormed into the heart of the top 10 in its first month of recorded deliveries, with 2026 examples reaching customers.

There’s a caveat here, as 450 of these were delivered in January but weren’t reported in that month’s VFACTS industry sales report due to an administrative error.

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With these included in the February tally, the Shark 6 managed to outsell the Isuzu D-Max, which consistently takes the bronze medal in sales in the ute segment.

Isuzu Ute Australia recorded 2022 deliveries for the D-Max, down 31.2 per cent. 4×2 deliveries were down by 18.1 per cent and 4×4 deliveries were down by 34.1 per cent.

The D-Max wasn’t the only ute to post a decline in February, with the segment a sea of red as overall light commercial vehicle deliveries fell by 10.2 per cent on February 2024.

4×2 ute deliveries were down 33 per cent, 4×4 utes down 7.9 per cent, and large pickups down 12.7 per cent.

The only bright spots were the Mazda BT-50 (up 1.7 per cent to 1412 units), Jeep Gladiator (up 127.8 per cent, though only to 41 units), Chevrolet Silverado 1500 (up 16.4 per cent to 199 units) and the Toyota Tundra (up 69.6 per cent to 78 units).

JAC’s T9 only launched late last year, with the Chinese brand reporting 204 deliveries.

The Ford Ranger was again the best-selling ute with 4040 deliveries (down 24.5 per cent), ahead of the Toyota HiLux (3616 deliveries, down 17.9 per cent).

BYD’s new ute likely capitalised on the impending end of the Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) exemption for PHEVs, which expires on April 1, 2025. For now it’s Australia’s only PHEV ute, though the Ford Ranger PHEV and GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV are arriving soon.

The Shark 6’s strong performance, along with the recent arrival of the Sealion 6 PHEV and Sealion 7 electric SUVs, helped push BYD sales up 111.8 per cent compared to February 2024, making it Australia’s 11th best-selling brand with 3281 deliveries.

These new models also helped offset significant slumps for the Atto 3 (down 80.6 per cent to 138 units), the Dolphin (down 79.9 per cent to 44 units) and Seal (down 91 per cent to 56 units).

This follows a slump in January for all of those models, which BYD blamed on a lack of supply following port delays.

The brand’s local distributor EVDirect has an ambitious target to topple Toyota by 2027… or for BYD to at least become a top three-brand in that year.

The distributor is targeting 45,000 BYD sales this year, with its CEO David Smitherman telling CarExpert late last year it planned to double its sales every year.

In February, Mr Smitherman confirmed BYD planned to double its retail network locally over the next 6-12 months.

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