Car and battery maker BYD has warned that its full-year net profit could fall as much as 65 per cent - worse than analysts had forecast.
'The company expects the net profit for 2011 will decrease by 35 to 65 per cent ... ranging from 883.2 million yuan [HK$1.08 billion] to 1.64 billion, and the operating profit for the year is expected to be reduced by 40 to 50 per cent,' the Shenzhen-based company told the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday.
The revised forecast from the company part-owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is more pessimistic than a Bloomberg consensus estimate of 12 analysts that BYD's net profit would fall 54.8 per cent to 1.14 billion yuan this year, from 2.52 billion yuan last year.
For the quarter that ended September 30, BYD's net profit leapt 582 per cent to 77.37 million yuan, but for the first three quarters, net profit plunged 85.5 per cent to 352.73 million yuan.
Turnover rose 10.95 per cent to 11.79 billion yuan in the third quarter, but fell 4.34 per cent to 34.33 billion yuan in the first three quarters.
The lower profit outlook was mainly due to a fall in car sales. Also, the weak solar energy market meant BYD's solar energy business would not perform as expected, the company said.
In terms of the number of units, BYD's car sales rose 9.1 per cent to 94,024 units in the third quarter. BYD said its traditional battery business remained stable during the third quarter, but sales of solar cell products were less than satisfactory because of weak demand.