GUANGZHOU -- China's electric vehicle makers are struggling to break their dependence on dwindling government sales incentives, with leader BYD announcing a hefty decline in net profit for 2018 on March 27 as the automaker spent heavily to keep prices attractive.
Beijing's phaseout of subsidies for new-energy vehicles has put pressure on earnings, BYD said. Net profit fell 31.6% to 2.78 billion yuan ($414 million), even as revenue surged 22.8% to over 130 billion yuan and electric-car unit sales roughly doubled to nearly 248,000. BYD's operating profit margin shrank to 3.3% last year from a peak of 5.8% in 2016 as the company shelled out to maintain its low prices.
