Chinese EV maker BYD’s profits fall as price war at home swamps surging overseas sales



China’s electric-vehicle (EV) king BYD reported a 30 per cent drop in profits in the second quarter as surging overseas sales failed to offset the negative impact of a brutal price war in the domestic market.

The Shenzhen-based company earned 6.4 billion yuan (US$894.6 million) in the three months to June, down 29.9 per cent from a year earlier. Revenue grew 14 per cent year on year to 201 billion yuan.

The second-quarter numbers are derived by comparing BYD’s interim earnings to its results for the first three months, published in April.

Rising EV adoption in China had led to “increased price competition and frequent occurrences of excessive marketing, which exerted an adverse periodic impact on the development of the industry”, BYD said in a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday.

BYD’s earnings for the first half rose 14 per cent to 15.5 billion yuan, falling short of a consensus forecast of 23.5 billion yuan in a Bloomberg survey of analysts. First-half revenue climbed 23 per cent to 371.3 billion yuan, lower than the 408 billion yuan forecast in the survey.

Overseas sales surged in the second quarter as BYD’s inexpensive models attracted more foreign consumers opting for environmentally friendly cars.

The company, controlled by Chinese billionaire Wang Chuanfu, delivered 258,182 cars to customers abroad in the second quarter, up 144.7 per cent from a year earlier and 25.3 per cent from the preceding three months.

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