BYD Jan-Sept net profit up 201% on strong car sales

Shanghai, November 27 (Gasgoo.com) China's electric car and battery maker BYD Co. Ltd. said yesterday that its earnings in the first nine months surged 201% thanks to strong car sales in the domestic market, Reuters reported.

BYD, 10% owned by U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, posted a net profit of 2.34 billion yuan ($342.8 million) from January to September, up from 777.8 million yuan of a year earlier. Revenue increased 39% to 26.36 billion yuan in the first nine months.

The company's Jan-Sept car sales soared 50% year on year to almost 300,000 units. Sales in September rose 88% to 44,070 cars. October sales came to 46,645 units, up from 24,416 of a year earlier. About two-thirds of the car sales were achieved by its F3 model.

BYD will exceed its target of doubling its conventional car sales this year to 400,000 units, a BYD executive told Reuters this week in Guangzhou. Reportedly the automaker had sold less than 100 units of its highly touted F3DM electric car in the first eight months.

"In the future, solar energy may become one of the driving forces of BYD's electric vehicles," a company executive said last week. Apart from the IT and auto businesses, the new energy will be the third market that BYD is planning to enter.

Wang Chuanfu, founder and chairman of BYD, tops the 2009 Forbes China Rich List, up from 23rd place last year, after his fortune increased to 39.6 billion yuan ($5.8 billion).