Record high sales at Chinese developer Vanke, which unveiled ‘to survive’ slogan, in 2018
- Company generated 606.95 billion yuan in sales last year
- Main competitor Country Garden expected to retain top spot
China Vanke, mainland China’s second-largest property developer by sales, said on Friday it generated 606.95 billion yuan (US$88.28 billion) in sales last year, a record high for the company.
Vanke said contracted sales in December were up by 8 per cent compared with the previous month, generating 63.01 billion yuan, according to a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange.
This pushed total contract sales at Vanke up by 14.54 per cent for 2018. Its total contract sales for 2017 stand at 529.88 billion yuan.
The company unveiled the slogan “to survive” during a two-day conference in Shenzhen in September 2018, amid concerns about “darkening skies over the country’s builders”. According to Vanke’s filing, it developed a further 22 new residential projects in 16 cities in December.
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Securities firm China International Capital Corporation said in November sales of new homes could slide by 10 per cent in 2019. S&P Global Ratings, meanwhile, said the same month prices might fall by as much as 5 per cent. Also in November, brokerage CGS-CIMB Securities forecast a 10 per cent decline in prices and sales volumes.
Country Garden Holdings, Vanke’s main competitor, reported 12.14 billion yuan in sales attributed to shareholders for December, a 64.1 per cent drop when compared with November. When calculating the sales attributed to shareholders, the company factors in its share in all jointly developed projects.