HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD Co LTD forecast strong growth in its six-month net profit on Friday, buoyed by robust car sales and increased market share.
Net profit for the first six months of the year would rise as much as 225.4% to 11.7 billion yuan ($1.64 billion) from 3.6 billion yuan the year before, it said in a filing to the Shenzhen stock exchange.
The bottom end of its forecast range was 10.5 billion yuan, up 192.1% from the year before.
“The sales volume of the company’s new energy vehicles has achieved strong growth from a high base in the same period last year, and continued to consolidate its leadership in new energy vehicle industry,” BYD said in the filing.
BYD and U.S. rival Tesla set record deliveries of their China-made vehicles in the second-quarter, according to industry data, as a fight for market share heats up.
BYD has proposed a $1 billion investment plan to build electric cars and batteries in India in partnership with a local company, sources have said, with a longer-term to build a full lineup of BYD-brand electric cars in India.
($1 = 7.1348 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Meg Shen; Editing by Mark Potter)
