BYD gains double-digit growth in April oil-fueled vehicle sales, but NEV sales still slump

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- For the month of April, BYD posted a 15.94% decrease from the prior-year period, while boasted a month-on-month growth of 3.95% as the market has continually take a favorable turn with the coronavirus ebbing in China. 

Oil-fueled vehicle sales in April jumped 36.06% over a year earlier to 18,814 units. Of those, 15,073 units were SUVs, representing a stupendous year-on-year increase of 313.19%. However, the sales of sedans and MPVs still slumped 30.6% and 77.69% respectively. 

（BYD e2, photo source: BYD)

The overall downturn entirely stemmed from the 45.88% plunge in April NEV sales. It was also the tenth month in a row for the NEV sector to suffer decrease.

Among NEVs sold last month, 12,262 units were PVs, a year-on-year slump of 46.07%. Of those, sales volumes of BEVs and PHEVs amounted to 9,966 units (-38.16%) and 2,296 units (-65.13%).

Selling 93,082 vehicles for the first four months, BYD posted a 40.11% plunge compared with the same period a year ago, 7.78 percentage points fewer than the decline in Q1 volume. The main cause contributing to the decrease was the flagging sales offered by the NEV arm. It is worth noting that the drop in the year-to-date fuel-burning vehicle sales was shrunk to 0.58%.

(All-new Qin, photo source: BYD)

BYD announced its first-quarter net profit slumped 84.98% over a year ago to RMB112.636 million, while excluding the impact of no-recurring gains and losses, the company actually posted a net loss of RMB471.7 million, versus a profit of RMB411.967 million for the year-ago period.

The governmental subsidies partly accounted for the substantial gap between the net profit and the non-recurring-excluded one. BYD said RMB533.16 million worth of governmental grant was recorded into its first-quarter financial result, of which most part is related to automobile business.

Last month, four ministries of China announced the subsidies for NEV purchases, which were supposed to be stopped by the end of this year, would be extended to 2022.

To slow the pace of subsidy phase-out, the government would in principal cut subsidies on NEVs by 10% this year, by 20% in 2021 and by 30% in 2022, according to the document jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission.