China’s BYD Forecasts Higher Third-Quarter Profit on Record EV Sales

By Ben Otto

Chinese automaker BYD Co. expects third-quarter profit to rise at least 67% on the back of record electric-vehicle sales.
The Warren Buffett-backed maker of electric vehicles and batteries estimated net profit for the quarter at between 9.55 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) and CNY11.55 billion, up from CNY5.72 billion in the same period a year ago, it said in a stock exchange filing late Tuesday.

For the first three quarters of the year, BYD expects profit to more than double to CNY20.50 billion to CNY22.50 billion, from CNY9.31 billion a year ago.
Sales volume of new-energy vehicles reached a new high, “despite the increasingly intensified competition in the automobile industry in the third quarter,” BYD said.
Earlier this month, BYD said its total vehicle sales nearly doubled in the January-September period to 2.08 million vehicles.
Separately, subsidiary BYD Electronic said Tuesday that it expects its nine-month profit to more than double, rising to CNY2.84 billion to CNY3.12 billion, from CNY1.24 billion a year ago.
The maker of mobile handset components cited expansion in its business with overseas customers and rebounding demand from Android customers, among other factors.
Write to Ben Otto at ben.otto@wsj.com