Chinese carmaker BYD, the world leader in electric vehicles, on Tuesday announced record profits for 2023, despite a price war in China, in a market marked by strong demand for clean vehicles, according to AFP.
BYD U8Photo: Vlad Barza / HotNews.ro
China, the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases in absolute terms, aims to sell mostly electric and hybrid vehicles by 2035.
China’s electric vehicle market has expanded at breakneck speed in recent years, boosted in particular by purchase subsidies, which were withdrawn at the end of December 2022.
To keep up with the economic slowdown, dozens of local manufacturers have launched a price war in China, the world’s largest auto market.
In early 2023, “the recovery in automobile purchases was relatively slow due to (…) market price fluctuations,” BYD chief Wang Chuanfu acknowledged in a statement.
Despite this, BYD posted a net profit of 30.04 billion yuan (3.83 billion euros) last year, up from 16.6 billion yuan a year earlier, the group said in a statement.
This result is in line with the forecast announced in January by BYD (between 29 and 31 billion yuan).
It represents an increase of 80.7% from one year to another.
BYD’s net profit had grown at a much faster rate in FY2022 (+445.8%).
“Aggressive Pricing”
BYD’s sales for 2023 are also up year-on-year (+42%) to 602.3 billion yuan (76.8 billion euros).
BYD (“Build Your Dreams”) is China’s leading electric vehicle manufacturer.
Not all of BYD’s local competitors can boast such results: XPeng last week reported losses of 10.4 billion yuan (1.3 billion euros) last year.
The “biggest advantage” BYD has over its competitors is that it produces in very large quantities, Tu Le, an analyst at specialist firm Sino Auto Insights, told AFP.
This allows it to “realize massive savings” and thus control its costs and set “aggressive pricing,” he pointed out.
BYD sold more than 3 million vehicles last year (+67.8% year-on-year).
The group was founded in 1995 in Shenzhen, a metropolis in southern China where many technology groups (Huawei, Tencent, etc.) have their headquarters.
Initially specializing in the design and manufacture of batteries, the company diversified into the automotive sector in 2003.
BYD currently sells hybrid and electric vehicles in about sixty countries, especially in Europe.
In December, the group announced the construction of an electric car factory in Hungary.
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