Chinese EV giant BYD Co. reported annual profit that missed analyst estimates.
Net income for 2023 was 30.04 billion yuan ($4.16 billion), the Shenzhen based automaker said in a statement Tuesday, compared to 30.94 billion yuan forecast by analysts.
In late January, the company flagged a preliminary profit forecast of 29 billion yuan to 31 billion yuan.
BYD overtook Tesla Inc. in the final quarter of 2023 as the world’s biggest seller of electric cars. It may struggle to keep hold of the title in the first three months of this year because of seasonal swings in sales during the Lunar New Year holiday in China — where BYD’s sales are concentrated — that distort the figures.
Chinese EV stocks dropped in premarket trading Wednesday. NIO fell 1.5%, Li Auto fell 2.4% and XPeng fell 4.2%.
Moreover, China’s exports of electric vehicles to European Union countries dropped by nearly a fifth during the first two months of the year, according to official Chinese data, amid a probe by Brussels into unfair subsidies of the industry.
Just over 75,600 EVs shipped to the EU’s 27 member countries in January and February, Chinese customs data showed, down 19.6% from last year.
Recent rapid gains in imports from companies such as BYD Co. and SAIC Motor Corp.-owned MG Motors have triggered warnings from Western carmakers including Stellantis NV of a wave of new competitors at a tough time for the industry. In October, the European Commission launched a probe into whether Chinese government subsidies had given its manufacturers an unfair advantage.
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