China’s BYD Co Ltd on Monday said first-half profit jumped 204.7 percent as the new energy vehicle maker broke its delivery record and retained its crown as China’s biggest-selling auto brand.
Net earnings for the six months ending June 30 reached 10.95 billion yuan ($1.50 billion), up 204.7 percent from 3.6 billion yuan a year earlier, on a 72.7 percent rise in revenue to 260.12 billion yuan, BYD said in a stock market filing.
The company posted a 6.82 billion yuan net profit for the April-June quarter, up 144.7 percent, a Reuters calculation showed. That was a smaller increase than in the first quarter when profit jumped fivefold. The Q2 earnings, the second-highest quarterly number, was within BYD’s net profit forecast of between 6.37 billion yuan and 7.57 billion yuan.
The Shenzhen-based automaker, whose investors include Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, has managed to cement its leadership in the world’s largest auto market in the face of intensifying price competition and slowing demand. It outsold Volkswagen-branded cars in China for the first time in October.
A BYD unit was revealed on Monday to have struck a deal to buy U.S.-based Jabil Inc’s mobility business in China for $2.2 billion.
Buoyed by its Dynasty and Ocean series of plug-in petrol-electric hybrids cars and battery-only electric vehicles (EV), BYD set a monthly sales record in July after deliveries hit 700,244 vehicles in the second quarter.
Still, profitability is under pressure from a price war initiated by U.S. EV rival Tesla at the start of the year and which has drawn in over 40 brands.
BYD’s second-quarter gross profit margin was 18.73 per cent, compared with 17.86 per cent in the first three months, Reuters’ analysis of the automaker’s financial disclosure showed.
Tesla recorded a decline in quarterly automotive gross margin in the second quarter, prioritising sales over earnings.
The U.S. automaker slashed prices in China for the second time in three days in mid-August, fuelling a fresh round of discounts among peers vying to survive a cooling market.
