Gasgoo.com (Shanghai September 3) - Truck and bus manufacturer Foton Motor experienced a year-on-year decrease of 14.7 percent in its business returns over the first half of 2012, China Business News reported today. The manufacturer reported total income of 26.24 billion yuan ($4.15b) for the six month period. However, Foton's net profits grew 159.9 percent over the same period of time, finishing at 1.83 billion yuan ($289.21m). That substantial increase is attributed mainly to the manufacturer completing verification of its new assets.
Foton's joint venture with Daimler gained official approval this February. Added value from the JV's Auman truck brand totaled approximately 5.95 billion yuan ($940.33m) in extraordinary income, adding greatly to Foton's reported net profit. If not counting income from extraordinary items, Foton's net profit for the first half of the year was just 210 million yuan ($33.19m), a full 67.7 percent than the amount it reported in the first half of 2011. What is especially worth noting is that the manufacturer suffered a net deficit of approximately 200 million yuan ($31.38m) in the second quarter.
The manufacturer's per-share stock price fell from 0.87 yuan ($0.136) a year ago to 0.1 yuan ($0.015).
Foton sold a total of 332,000 vehicles in the first half of the year, equivalent to a year-on-year decrease of 7.3 percent. An analysis by Citic Securities attributes Foton's subpar performance due to an overall decline in the market for trucks in China. The firm expects for a market recovery to take place next year at the earliest.
