Brazil's Future May Be Made in China

For twenty years, China’s playbook in Brazil was simple: buy soy, mine ore, fund hydro lines. The relationship was transactional, extraction-driven.

That era is ending. In 2025, the headlines are different: BYD revives Ford’s shuttered plant in Bahia with a US$1 billion EV hub, Great Wall Motors opens its first South American factory in Iracemápolis with a US$1 billion plan to produce hybrids, and Shein moves to onboard 2,000 Brazilian manufacturers by 2026 to make the country its Latin American export hub. China is no longer just a customer of Brazil’s commodities—it is becoming a co-architect of Brazil’s industrial future.

That shift is profound. From factories and ports; power grids and mines to ride hailing and delivery apps, Chinese firms are embedding themselves into the backbone of Brazil’s economy, reshaping supply chains in real time. Each physical investment also opens a digital frontier—demand for financing rails, dealer systems, fleet tools, charging networks, and logistics tech. The question now is who will seize those openings.

Let’s get into it.

A MANUFACTURING BEACHHEAD

Nowhere is China’s push more visible than in autos.

In July, BYD unveiled its first Brazilian-made electric car in Camaçari, Bahia. More than a milestone for one company, it was the first time a Chinese automaker had established full-scale production outside Asia. The ~US$1 billion complex, built on the ruins of Ford’s shuttered plant, is expected to employ up to 20,000 people once fully ramped up.

Weeks later, Great Wall Motors followed suit in Iracemápolis, São Paulo, reopening a former Mercedes-Benz facility. With President Lula at the ribbon-cutting, GWM announced a US$1 billion plan to tailor production to Brazil’s unique market—rolling out hybrid pickups and SUVs with flex-fuel engines designed for ethanol. By 2026, it aims for 60% local parts integration and a workforce growing from 600 to nearly 2,000, as exports across South America come online.

These newcomers join earlier entrants like Chery and JAC, shifting the balance of the auto market. Chinese brands now account for roughly 4% of vehicle sales, with imports alone projected to hit 8% of light vehicle registrations in 2025. While Western automakers retrench, Chinese firms are planting roots for the long haul—building supply chains, scaling local production, and positioning Brazil as their export base for the continent.

FAST FASHION AND FAST SHIPS

The same playbook is unfolding in apparel. Shein, once known for ultra-cheap online retail, is reinventing itself as a global manufacturer with Brazil at the center.

The company has already signed 336 partnerships across 12 states, with 213 factories actively producing, and pledged to source 85% of its Brazilian sales locally by 2026. Its US$150 million investment is expected to support up to 100,000 jobs.

On the marketplace side, Shein is exploding—hosting 30,000 sellers today and on track to reach 50,000 by year-end, turning Brazil into one of its largest markets globally, with annual sales estimated between US$1.5 and 5 billion. And the company isn’t stopping there: by 2026, Shein aims to transform Brazil into its export hub for all of Latin America, turning local supply chains into a launchpad for the region.

And Shein is just the tip of the spear.

Beyond fashion, Chinese capital is embedding itself into Brazil’s foundations—power grids, ports, shipping lanes, rail. State Grid of China now operates some of the country’s most critical transmission corridors, carrying hydro power from the Amazon basin to the industrial southeast.

On the coast, Chinese investors control TCP in Paranaguá, one of Brazil’s busiest container terminals, and are expanding grain capacity at Santos, Latin America’s largest port. In the Amazon, a new direct shipping route between Santana (Amapá) and Zhuhai is cutting transit times by nearly 30% and lowering freight costs—a lifeline for soy farmers, miners, and traders in Brazil’s interior.

And in July, Brasília and Beijing signed a deal to study a bio-oceanic rail link to Peru’s new Chancay megaport—still on paper, but bold enough to redraw South America’s trade maps.

The corridor isn’t just about cars and clothes. It’s also about control of critical minerals. In February 2025, Chinese miner MMG struck a deal to acquire Anglo American’s nickel operations in Brazil for up to US$500 million, a deal that would give Beijing sway over much of the country’s nickel—vital for EV batteries.

Months later, at the China–CELAC summit, Xi Jinping pledged 66 billion yuan (~US$9.2B) in credit to Latin America, with Brazil singled out as the largest beneficiary.

THE DIGITAL BACKBONE

Every factory, port, and shipping lane still depends on one thing: connectivity. And here, too, China has laid down roots. Huawei quietly powers much of Brazil’s telecom grid—its gear underpins most of the country’s 4G networks and continues to anchor 5G rollouts. Telefónica, which stripped Huawei from Europe, kept it in Brazil—a sign of how indispensable the equipment has become.

That backbone isn’t abstract. It’s the invisible layer making mobile commerce run, and the rails on which EV telematics, IoT sensors, and logistics platforms will ride.

On the consumer side, the story is just as striking. Xiaomi has leapfrogged Apple to become Brazil’s #2 smartphone brand, holding 15% of the market to Apple’s 14% and trailing only Samsung. These aren’t seen as cheap stopgaps—they’re being actively adopted, embedding Chinese hardware into the daily lives of millions. Each phone sold is a gateway: to Chinese apps, to services, to after-sales networks.

Connectivity is the quiet glue of China’s playbook in Brazil—hard to see, but impossible to ignore.

THE PLATFORM WARS

If ports and factories are the visible face of China’s rise in Brazil, platforms are the invisible one.

Mobility was the first domino. In 2018, Didi Chuxing acquired ride-hailing app 99 for over US$1 billion, giving Brazil its first unicorn exit. Under Didi, 99 expanded rapidly—reaching about 750,000 active drivers by 2023 and forcing Uber to adapt with features Brazilians demanded: safety protocols, loyalty perks, cash payments. By 2025, Uber had surged to 1.4 million registered drivers and couriers, making Brazil its largest market worldwide. Yet 99 remains the foil that shaped the rivalry—an entrenched challenger that keeps Uber from having the market to itself.

And Didi wasn’t about to stop at rides. Fresh off testing Uber’s dominance, it set its sights on food delivery. 99Food was the first salvo, an ambitious challenge to iFood’s near-monopoly. That attempt fizzled—99Food shut down quietly in 2023 after failing to crack iFood’s 80%+ grip. But in 2025, Didi is back with a vengeance, relaunching 99Food with a R$1 billion (~US$180 million) war chest aimed at Brazil’s fast-growing delivery market—already worth over US$6 billion and still climbing.

And they won’t be alone. Meituan, China’s king of on-demand services, has entered Brazil under the brand Keeta. Its ambitions are enormous: in its first year, Meituan plans to hire 1,000 corporate staff, 4,000 call-center operators, and a staggering 100,000 couriers, pouring over R$5.6 billion (~US$1.1 billion) in Brazil. Its playbook is familiar—higher pay for riders, lower fees for restaurants, heavy discounts for consumers.

This isn’t Meituan’s first foreign adventure. Its international delivery brand Keeta began its overseas rollout in May 2023, launching in Hong Kong and quickly rising to become the market leader by order volume. Keeta then entered Saudi Arabia in September 2024, expanding to 20 cities and ranking among the top three players in less than a year.  In August 2025, it launched in Qatar, signaling a broader push across the Middle East. That expansion offered lessons in regulation, competition, and logistics. But Brazil is the real stress test: whether Meituan can turn pilot projects into full-scale global markets.

The attention economy is also in play. TikTok counts nearly 100 million Brazilian users, making the country its #2 global market. Kwai, its rival from Kuaishou, has invested billions in local creators and now draws 60 million daily users, with average use above an hour a day. Both are piloting live e-commerce, fusing entertainment with shopping—threatening to pull billions in GMV away from Mercado Libre and local retailers.

Chinese capital is also reshaping Brazil’s own champions. In 2018, Tencent led a US $180 million investment that bought a roughly 5% stake in Nubank, helping transform it into the world’s largest neobank. Tencent later co-led a US $120 million Series E round for QuintoAndar, fueling its rise into a multibillion-dollar proptech. Meanwhile, Ant Group committed US $100 million to StoneCo’s IPO, backing Brazil’s leading payments processor in its public debut.

These strategic investments brought more than cash—they imported playbooks from China’s fintech and super-app revolutions, helping Brazilian startups scale quickly, monetize across ecosystems, and think globally.

WHY NOW

China’s surge into Brazil isn’t coincidence—it’s timing and strategy.

On one side, Brazil offers what China needs most: scale and stability. It’s the world’s second-largest agricultural exporter, has abundant critical minerals like nickel and lithium, and is Latin America’s largest consumer market with more than 200 million people. As global supply chains fracture under U.S.–China tensions, Brazil offers a politically aligned partner (Lula has repeatedly emphasized ties with Beijing) and a geographic hedge—an Atlantic base from which Chinese firms can reach the Americas.

On the other side, Brazil is opening the door. Western automakers like Ford and Mercedes-Benz have retreated, leaving behind idle factories and thousands of skilled workers. Inflation has cooled, interest rates are easing, and the government is offering tax breaks and incentives for EV production, renewable energy, and local manufacturing. Add to that the tariff squeeze in the U.S. and Europe—where Chinese EVs now face duties as high as 100%—and Brazil looks even more attractive. Producing inside the country allows Chinese automakers to sidestep Brazil’s own import taxes of up to 35% and tap into Mercosur’s tariff-free trade zone across South America. The same calculus applies to Shein, which avoids heavy duties on imported fast fashion by shifting production to Brazil while also winning political capital through job creation.

The long-term trend is even bigger. China isn’t just chasing today’s car buyers or fashion shoppers—it’s planting industrial roots for decades. BYD and GWM want Brazil as their South American export hub. Shein is using Brazilian supply chains to rewire its global model. Huawei and Xiaomi are laying digital foundations that will power not only e-commerce but connected cars, logistics, and IoT ecosystems. And Chinese investors are seeding Brazil’s fintechs and platforms with playbooks honed in Asia.

Put simply: China is building permanence in Brazil, embedding itself in the hard and digital infrastructure alike. The short-term effect is new factories, jobs, and cheaper goods. The long-term play is influence—over supply chains, consumer platforms, and the technologies that will define Latin America’s future.

WHAT’S ACTUALLY AT STAKE

For Brazilian founders, the play is clear: be the value-added layer on top of Chinese foundations. That could mean building consumer credit and financing tools for BYD or offering data infrastructure for State Grid’s smart grids. For investors, the opportunity is to back these platform adjacencies—software and services that compound on top of physical capital.

There are risks. Brazil could slip into a familiar pattern—exporting raw materials, importing finished goods, and consuming rather than creating high tech. Tech transfer is not automatic. But this is where startups can flip the script: by embedding themselves in these new supply chains and ensuring Brazil doesn’t just host factories, but also produces intellectual property.

Brazil has a chance not just to absorb China’s industrial wave, but to ride it—turning foreign factories into fertile ground for local innovation. The time to do it is now.

And for U.S. players, there’s a lesson too: Brazil isn’t a regional bet—it’s the global battleground. São Paulo is Uber’s largest market worldwide. Brazil is WhatsApp’s second-largest market globally, with near-total penetration that makes it Meta’s de facto operating system in the country. Google and YouTube dominate search and video, while Amazon is fighting Mercado Libre for e-commerce share. But in EVs, Chinese players are already so far ahead—in infrastructure, production, and market presence—that it will be brutally hard for Tesla and other U.S. automakers to catch up. Brazil has already proved it can be a core revenue engine for U.S. tech. Now it’s proving something else: ignore Brazil, and you’re not just ceding Latin America — you’re ceding the future of global scale.

THE J CURVE HALL OF FAME

Since you made it this far, you might want to check out last week’s episode featuring Tiago Dalvi, founder and CEO of Olist—Brazil’s leading e-commerce operating system, serving 45,000+ merchants and processing 60 billion reais annually.

This episode is a masterclass on how to turn a near-collapse into a billion-dollar pivot and scale in one of the toughest markets in the world:

Thanks for reading,

Olga 

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