Gasgoo.com (Shanghai March 28) - Over the past few days China's own brand manufacturers have been releasing their fiscal reports for 2012. Great Wall and Geely reported strong performances last year, while BYD performed relatively weakly. FAW Car and other enterprises, on the other hand, reported large sales drops last year.
According to comments made by Cinda Securities Automotive Industry Analyst Xing Haizhi and cited by a report appearing in the National Business Daily today, given the dull state of the Chinese passenger automobile market last year, Great Wall and Geely's performances were very outstanding. Despite reporting a slight slump in sales BYD still placed among the year's most successful own brand manufacturers.
Great Wall reported earning a total business income of 43.16 billion yuan ($6.88b) last year, 43.44 percent higher than 2011's figure and nearly double than the 22.98 billion yuan ($3.51b) reported in 2010. The manufacturer's sales for the year totaled 621,438 vehicles, representing year-on-year growth of 34.31 percent. According to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, Great Wall's sales in the pickup truck, SUV and sedan segments totaled 136,694 units, 279,956 units and 199,256 units, respectively. Exports accounted for 95,489 of the manufacturer's sales, constituting 13.67 percent of its total income. Mr. Xing attributed Great Wall's strong performance to updates made to its best-selling products.
Geely reported an income of 24.63 billion yuan ($3.92b) for the year, representing year-on-year growth of 17 percent. The manufacturer sold 483,483 vehicles, 15 percent more than the amount sold the previous year. Among them, 21 percent of the sales were made overseas. Much like Great Wall, export sales greatly boosted Geely's performance last year.
BYD's performance lagged behind Great Wall and Geely, with its net profit dropping 94.12 percent last year, totaling 81.37 million yuan ($12.92m). The manufacturer reported selling 420,000 vehicles last year, accumulating 46.84 billion yuan ($7.47b) in total income. Although its overall performance declined, sales of certain BYD models, including the S6, G6 and F3 Surui all noticeably grew.
Compared with the above three enterprises, sales of state-owned automobile manufacturers were relatively poor. According to its recently released fiscal report, FAW Car suffered a deficit of 500 million yuan to 800 million yuan ($79.71m-$127.53m) in 2012. By comparison, the manufacturer had reported a net profit of 217 million yuan ($34.49m) the previous year. FAW Car sold a total of 180,000 vehicles over the year, 23.7 percent less than the amount sold in 2011. Thanks to substantial government subsidies, Changan's performance was slightly better, reporting a net profit of 1.4 billion yuan to 1.6 billion yuan ($223.18m-$255.05m).
A new series of policies aimed at helping own brand manufacturers has come into effect in 2013, which Mr. Xing predicts will allow their performance to be stronger this year than they have been over the past two years.
