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The big story
For any company looking to thrive beyond its home borders, adapting to cultural nuances is critical.
During my recent visit to the headquarters of Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer Xpeng in Guangzhou, the transformation was striking. The sleek new facility was not just a visual upgrade from the previous year’s visit; it embodied a global outlook in even the smallest details, such as precise English translations on signage and in presentations. This went far beyond the usual “innovation” slogans often seen in China.
Notably, leaders from Xpeng’s autonomous driving, robotics, and flying car divisions each delivered extensive presentations solely in English, complete with English slides, and without the aid of any translation devices. In a discussion with journalists, Xpeng’s founder and CEO, He Xiaopeng, ambitiously stated a ten-year vision to achieve half of the company’s sales from international markets.
He Xiaopeng’s optimism is well-founded. Xpeng has sustained a robust delivery streak, achieving over 30,000 deliveries each month for a full year. Additionally, the company has expanded its international presence, exporting 29,000 vehicles over three quarters—more than doubling their export numbers from the previous year.
In November 2025, Xpeng inaugurated its new headquarters in Guangzhou, China, with the majority of its staff commencing work at the state-of-the-art facility.
CNBC | Evelyn Cheng
Xpeng’s global ambitions reflect a broader trend across China. In the last year or so, overseas expansion has become a top priority for nearly every Chinese company — an eagerness that Joe Ngai, chairman of McKinsey Greater China, said he’s never seen.
“It’s astonishing what this phenomenon is,” he said, noting that fierce competition in China is driving local companies to seek higher profit margins abroad. But he cautioned it won’t be easy, and that local partnerships would be important.
Overseas markets only accounted for 8% of total revenue for the 50 largest Chinese companies as of 2021, according to McKinsey. That is far below 31% in overseas revenue for the largest U.S. companies, the data showed.
Finding traction
I first learned about Xpeng on the sidelines of CNBC’s East Tech West conference in 2018, when the Alibaba-backed startup touted its edge in autonomous driving and drew comparisons to Tesla.
But Xpeng wasn’t able to release regulator-approved driver-assist systems at scale for a few years yet. Deliveries averaged just over 10,000 a month in 2022, and dipped well below that in early 2023 while rivals surged ahead.
At a small Xpeng event in Shanghai that I attended in March 2023, there were hints that the startup might have the tech — just not the product Chinese consumers wanted. The event speaker, Xinzhou Wu, head of autonomous driving, soon left to lead Nvidia‘s automotive chip business.
It was also in early 2023 that Xpeng brought in veteran Great Wall Motor executive Fengying Wang as president to oversee product planning and sales. Her leadership, along with the launch of a more affordable Mona M03 car, helped spark the company’s turnaround. Wang remains with Xpeng today.
“Of course, it’s much better when [the electric car companies have an] English-language interface,” said Nick Kolodko, a Shanghai-based auto influencer who has lived in China for over a decade. He noted how some Chinese EV startups in Europe had in-car AI assistants that didn’t support local languages.
He’s since observed some Chinese automakers granting their overseas teams more control over the last 18 months or so, though he said there’s still a gap with European rivals in shaping a compelling brand narrative.
Critically for Xpeng, it secured a $700 million investment from German auto giant Volkswagen in July 2023. The two companies have gradually expanded the partnership to include technological development.
Down the road, “Chinese EV makers can also take a lot of [intellectual property] fees from such [tech] collaboration,” said George Chen, managing director and co-chair of digital practice for The Asia Group. “This will be significant because 30, 40 years ago, European carmakers and American carmakers [were] doing exactly the same thing in Chinese markets.”
For now, Xpeng is taking the first step beyond exporting cars and local production.
The company opened its first European factory in Austria in August, and plans to produce tens of thousands of cars there next year, according to Brian Gu, co-president of Xpeng. A former JPMorgan executive, Gu has been with Xpeng since its early days and helped the startup build ties with Wall Street ahead of its U.S. and Hong Kong listings.
Xpeng is set to release earnings on Monday. In the first half of 2025, Xpeng claimed to be the best-selling Chinese new-energy vehicle startup brand in Norway, France, Singapore and Israel.
“The whole overseas expansion of Chinese companies will be part of the global business landscape for the next five years,” McKinsey’s Ngai said, “and I have zero doubts about it.”
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Weiwen Han, Bain & Co.’s Asia-Pacific retail practice leader, said China’s sales “month” could surpass U.S. Cyber Week sales and continue to grow steadily.
Fred Hu, Chairman and CEO of Primavera Capital, said China’s economy will be in much better shape once consumer spending normalizes.
Georges Elhedery, CEO of HSBC, discussed the impact of tariffs on global trade and added that China’s economic rebalancing is a “welcome development.”
Need to know
China’s exports dip. Shipments of Chinese goods fell in October for the first time in more than a year as businesses slowed their ramp-up of orders to pre-empt tariffs.
Uneasy U.S.-China truce. Beijing has formalized agreements to delay restrictions on certain rare-earth exports for a year.
Luckin’s second act. Jinyi Guo, CEO of Luckin Coffee, said the company is preparing to relist in the U.S. five years after an accounting scandal. It will face new Chinese IPO rules to do so.
Quote of the week
The one thing that was different from Xpeng AI day from its previous tech day, is that it is talking more about its ambition oversea as a brand, not just as a EV maker, because it is pushing out all these other physical AI products beyond just an electric vehicle.
— Kevin Xu, founder and CIO of Interconnected Capital
In the markets
Chinese stock markets traded mixed following Tuesday’s session on Wall Street, where investors sold off technology names and drove a rally in more risk-off parts of the market.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index added 0.81%, while mainland’s CSI 300 lost 0.13%.
The offshore Chinese yuan last traded at 7.1189 against the dollar.
The performance of the Shanghai Composite over the past year.
Coming up
Nov. 13: Baidu holds annual conference with AI details expected; Tencent releases quarterly earnings
Nov. 14: China releases October retail sales, industrial production and investment data; Alibaba wraps up its extended Singles Day shopping event
Nov. 17: Xpeng to release quarterly earnings
Nov. 18: Baidu, iQiyi to release quarterly results
