Source: Denza

BYD (HKG: 1211) announced on March 25, 2026 that British actor Daniel Craig will front a global marketing campaign for DENZA, the company's premium new-energy vehicle sub-brand, as the brand enters its first phase of international expansion.

Craig will appear in television commercials and broader marketing materials covering several key DENZA models launching in 2026.

The announcement was made in Paris and timed to precede DENZA's European debut — the official premiere of the Z9GT shooting brake, scheduled for April 8 at the Palais Garnier opera house.

Source: Denza

BYD Executive Vice President Stella Li said Craig embodies qualities the brand wants to project as it enters Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. The partnership is the first time DENZA has used a global celebrity spokesperson at this scale.

DENZA was founded in 2010 as a 50-50 joint venture between BYD and Daimler, now Mercedes-Benz. Early models sold modestly, with the brand moving only around 23,000 vehicles across its first decade. Mercedes-Benz reduced its stake to 10 percent in 2021, then exited entirely in September 2024, transferring the remainder to BYD.

Under BYD's majority control from 2022, the brand's fortunes reversed sharply. The D9 MPV — launched that year — became the best-selling new-energy MPV in China for two consecutive years, accumulating 300,000 cumulative global deliveries by late 2025 and holding close to 60 percent of China's high-end NEV people-mover market. Full-year DENZA sales in China reached 126,035 units in 2024, a figure the brand was targeting to more than double in 2025.

Despite that domestic momentum, DENZA accounted for roughly 3 percent of BYD's 4.2 million global sales in 2024, with more than 90 percent of its volume sold in China. The international campaign marks the brand's first concerted push to change that ratio.

The vehicle anchoring DENZA's European entry is the Z9GT, a large shooting-brake-style estate measuring 5,180 mm in length with a 3,125 mm wheelbase. The fully electric version uses a tri-motor system producing 952 hp (710 kW) and 1,150 Nm of torque, reaching 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3.4 seconds. A 100.1 kWh BYD Blade battery delivers a claimed CLTC range of 630 km (391 miles); the car's 800-volt architecture supports DC charging at up to 270 kW.

An updated version of the Z9GT unveiled in China in early March 2026 pushes the CLTC range to 1,036 km (644 miles) using a 122 kWh Blade Battery 2.0, which supports a full charge in approximately nine minutes via BYD's new megawatt-class Flash Charging infrastructure. It is not confirmed whether the European Z9GT launch model will carry this updated specification.

The April 8 Paris event will also serve as the European introduction of BYD's Flash Charging system, which in China operates at up to 1,500 kW using twin GB/T cables. For European markets, the system is expected to be capped at around 1,000 kW through a single CCS2 connector, though BYD has not formally confirmed the European power ceiling.

In China, the Z9GT is priced from 269,800 CNY (c. $39,100) for the refreshed model. European pricing has not been announced; industry sources have placed expectations above €75,000 for the entry-level trim, which would position it above BYD's existing premium offerings in the region and in the same tier as the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo and Mercedes-AMG EQE.

Monthly retail data illustrates how dramatically the brand's trajectory shifted under BYD's stewardship. DENZA averaged roughly 350–480 units per month through 2020 and 2021, reflecting the limitations of its legacy joint-venture lineup.

After BYD assumed majority control and launched the D9 in late 2022, volumes climbed sharply into five figures — reaching a 2023 average of around 10,600 units per month. The brand held that level through 2024, with a full-year total of 126,035 retail units, before accelerating in 2025: monthly sales peaked at 17,647 in December, the brand's single highest recorded month.

January and February 2026 have come in notably softer, at 5,449 and 5,351 respectively — a pattern consistent with the Chinese New Year seasonal slowdown and the transition period ahead of the updated Z9GT's commercial rollout.

The Craig partnership coincides with DENZA's broadest international rollout to date. Alongside Europe, the brand has entered Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Australia — where the B5 and B8 SUVs launched in late 2025 — and is expanding into additional markets. A second European model, the D9 MPV, is expected to follow the Z9GT in the second half of 2026.

Whether a British actor best known for playing a fictional spy can move the needle in a segment long dominated by German brands remains to be seen — though BYD has a habit of making unlikely things work.

Conversion rate: 1 USD = 6.90 CNY as of March 26, 2026