On August 29, BYD announced its financial report for the first half of 2024. Just as it has a central position at the 2024 Chengdu Motor Show, the world's largest new energy vehicle company has also achieved outstanding performance in terms of performance.
BYD's financial report for the first half of the year shows that BYD's operating income in the first half of the year was 301.127 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.76%, surpassing SAIC Group, which has ranked first in revenue for a long time, for the first time; net profit was 13.631 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.44%; The net profit after deduction was 12.315 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27.03%.
In the first half of 2024, BYD's main business of automobiles, automobile-related products and other products will have a revenue of about 228.317 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.33%, accounting for 76% of the total operating income.
It is worth mentioning that in the second quarter of 2024, BYD's net profit attributable to the parent company reached 9.062 billion yuan, an increase of 32.80% over the same period last year, nearly doubling compared with the net profit in the first quarter, and the second quarter with the highest net profit in BYD's history.
This achievement is not only due to BYD's leading position in the new energy vehicle market, but also inseparable from its continuous investment in technological innovation and product strength, and its financial performance shows its strong market competitiveness and profitability.
In the first half of the year, China's automotive industry faced a complex macro environment, but China's automotive industry showed strong resilience, with the combination of various national and local policies to promote consumption, automobile marketing activities, a large number of new models on the market and other factors, the market recovered, and automobile consumption gradually recovered.
Especially in the field of new energy vehicles, the state has issued a series of policies that are conducive to the popularization of new energy vehicles and the improvement of the intelligent level of new energy vehicles, and gradually promote the high-quality development of China's intelligent networked new energy vehicle industry. BYD is expected to continue to lead the market with the help of the resonance of the policy industry.
According to the data of the Easy Car List, BYD's sales in July have jumped to the third place in the world, second only to Toyota and Volkswagen; Previously, according to MarkLines data, in the second quarter of this year, BYD's sales have surpassed Honda to become the world's seventh largest car company.
The latest sales as of August show that BYD's cumulative sales in the first eight months reached 2.328 million units, an increase of 29.9% year-on-year.
R&D expenses exceed profits, and spare no effort to engage in technology
Insisting on innovation and taking R&D as the foundation of the enterprise is the cornerstone of BYD's competitiveness. With strong R&D genes and a strong engineer culture, BYD has a team of more than 100,000 engineers who are deeply engaged in core technology fields. From electrification to intelligence, BYD is gradually building a unique competitiveness.
Judging from the financial report, BYD's R&D expenditure in the first half of this year increased by 41.64% year-on-year to 20.177 billion yuan, exceeding the net profit of 6.6 billion yuan in the same period. It can be seen from the 2024 semi-annual reports of mainstream listed car companies that BYD's R&D investment is higher than Tesla's (about RMB 16.1 billion), which is almost equal to the sum of Great Wall, Ideal, Geely, and Changan.
Wind data shows that among the more than 5,300 A-share listed companies, BYD's R&D expenses rank first, becoming the "king of R&D" in A-shares.
In the 14 years since 2011, BYD has invested more in R&D than net profit for 13 years, sometimes several times the net profit in the same period. Up to now, BYD's cumulative R&D investment has reached nearly 150 billion. This means that BYD not only invests all the benefits from the market into new technologies, but also pays out of its own pocket to continue to polish its products, give back to the market, and feed back to users.
In the first half of the year, in the field of electronic and electrical architecture, BYD released the subversive e-platform 3.0 Evo and the fifth-generation DM technology.
In the field of intelligence, earlier this year, Wang Chuanfu said in public that BYD will invest 100 billion yuan in the field of intelligence. In 2024, BYD will launch more than 10 high-end intelligent driving models equipped with lidar. In the future, BYD's models of more than 200,000 yuan will provide optional high-end intelligent driving assistance systems, and all models of more than 300,000 yuan will be standard.
As a continuation of the intelligent strategy, at the 2024 DENZA Automotive Technology Day held in August, BYD announced that it will continue to increase intelligent driving, and has developed its own in-vehicle computing platform, established a perception laboratory, developed end-to-end large models, and built its own supercomputing center. At present, BYD has a smart driving R&D team of more than 4,000 engineers, and has built a full-stack self-developed smart driving R&D system.
On August 27, BYD Formula Leopard and Huawei Qiankun Intelligent Driving signed a cooperation agreement in Shenzhen to jointly develop the world's first hard-core exclusive intelligent driving solution. The Leopard 8 will become the first model of BYD's Huawei Qiankun Intelligent Driving, and it is expected that in the fourth quarter of this year, the Leopard 8 will be equipped with Huawei's Qiankun Intelligent Driving ADS 3.0 officially launched.
The second half of electrification is intelligence, and the two are inseparable and mutually reinforcing. BYD, which has "eaten" electrification, will lead the intelligentization at a more efficient speed on this solid foundation.
Accelerate the expansion of overseas and build the global competitiveness of Chinese automobiles
Technology strategy can build a moat for a business, and market strategy is also worth looking into. At present, the BYD brand has successfully covered the all-round needs of the entry-level to the high-end market by building two series of product lines, "Dynasty" and "Ocean". At the same time, through sub-brands such as Equation Leopard, Denza, and Yangwang, BYD Group has also made significant breakthroughs in the high-end market and personalized needs.
The multi-category and multi-dimensional product line also gives BYD the confidence to compete in the world battlefield. In fact, BYD has already carved out a niche in the global market. According to public data, BYD's overseas sales in August were 31,451 units, a year-on-year increase of 25.7%. From January to August, BYD exported more than 260,000 new energy passenger vehicles.
In July, BYD held the completion of its Thailand plant and the launch of its 8 million new energy vehicles, which is enough to show its active layout advantages based on overseas markets. On the road from Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport to the city center, the slogan "BYD NO.1" is spread across viaducts, buildings and shops, and in a market that was originally occupied by Japanese cars, China's new energy vehicles, led by BYD, have begun to launch a strong offensive.
According to BYD, as of August 2024, BYD's new energy vehicle footprint has spread to 94 countries and regions around the world, and its passenger car footprint has covered 84 countries and regions around the world and more than 400 cities.
As a leading enterprise of new energy vehicles in China, BYD's going overseas will promote more Chinese auto brands to the world. By driving the global layout of China's new energy vehicle industry chain, it will promote the coordinated development of upstream and downstream enterprises. It can be said that with BYD as the vanguard, the trend of Chinese car companies rolling into overseas markets has been irreversible, and in the long run, this will create favorable conditions for the sustainable development of the domestic automotive industry.