The largest manufacturer of electric cars, the Chinese company BYD, obtained a net profit of 30,041 million yuan (3,837 million euros), which represents a growth of 80.72% compared to the previous year. The company has reported through the income statement that it presented this Tuesday to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange – where it is listed -, the company also reports a 42% year-on-year increase in its turnover, which reached approximately 602,315 million yuan. (76,964 million euros).
Furthermore, in another statement released today, BYD announces that it has become the first manufacturer to reach 7 million plug-in vehicles produced worldwide. The firm had already reported that its vehicle sales increased almost 62% year-on-year throughout 2023, to exceed 3 million units. At the end of January, the group announced that its profits for the year would skyrocket between 74.5% and 86.5% thanks to the increase in sales of electric vehicles – in 2022 it stopped manufacturing models with a combustion engine -, for what the final result falls within your estimates.
The net profit for 2023, notes the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post, is the highest in the company’s history, although it is slightly below what analysts expected, especially in the case of the last quarter, marked by what The group has described “fierce competition” in the Chinese market, immersed in a price war between multiple companies.
Dethroned and Tesla in 2023
Last year, BYD maintained its status as a leader in the Chinese electric sector, with a market share of 31.9%, 4.8 points higher than in 2022. Furthermore, in that last quarter of the year, the company dethroned the American Tesla as the world’s largest seller of electric cigars; The Chinese company had already surpassed it as an electric manufacturer in 2022, although in that case the measurement also included plug-in hybrids, a type of vehicle that the company led by Elon Musk does not manufacture.
Looking ahead to 2024, the founder and president of the automaker, Wang Chuanfu, advanced that BYD “will strengthen the independence and controllability of the research and development (R&D) of its key technologies, and will continue to improve the competitiveness of its products”. In this regard, the company announced in January a plan to invest some 100 billion yuan (13,852 million dollars, 12,780 million euros) over an undisclosed period for the development of intelligent vehicles, which Wang considers as a pr next battle of the sector after electrification.
Expansion in the Latin American market
Likewise, and referring to its sales abroad – where its turnover increased by 75.2%, going from 21.6% to 26.6% of the total -, the manager promised to “accelerate” the company’s internationalization to “help “because China’s automobile industry is leading the global trend” in electric vehicles. In addition to its presence in China, BYD has been investing heavily in Latin America for years, where it recently began building a factory complex in Brazil; and it also has presence in markets in more than 50 countries, including Spain.
