BYD’s staggering forecast, SOE profits, provincial GDP targets, smartphone sales, Jinko Solar

BYD’s staggering profit forecast for 2022: Electric car giant BYD today announced a revenue projection for last year of more than 420 billion yuan ($61.89 billion) and net profit of up to 17 billion yuan, an increase of 458% year-on-year. The company sold 1.86 million cars last year, an increase of 208%.

Profits at state owned enterprises declined in 2022, according to data released today by the Ministry of Finance: Total revenues at SOEs — including entities managed by the central government and local governments — were 82.59 trillion yuan ($12.17 trillion), a year-on-year increase of 8.3%, and net profits were 4.31 trillion yuan ($635.87 billion), a decrease of 5.1%. Centrally-managed SOEs were still profitable, making net profits of 1.9 trillion yuan ($275.69 billion) in 2022, an increase of 5%, per data released in early January by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

No Chinese province achieved its 2022 annual GDP growth target, but 16 provinces surpassed the national GDP growth rate of 3% year-on-year last year, led by Fujian and Jiangxi (both 4.7%). There were 15 provinces that grew at below the national average; eight grew by less than 2%, with shrinking Shanghai (-0.2) and Jilin (-1.9%) bringing up the rear.

Smartphone sales in China last year fell below 300 million units for the first time in 10 years: According to data by the International Data Corporation (IDC), only 286 million smartphones were sold in China last year, a year-on-year decrease of 13.2%, the largest decline ever.

Jinko Solar is the first company to ship 10 GW annually of advanced solar panels: In the first half of 2022, Jinko Solar was the world’s leading supplier of solar panels. Yesterday, the company reported that it shipped 44 gigawatts (GW) of solar panels in 2022, ranking second in the world. Last year, Jinko Solar became the first company to exceed shipments of 10 GW of the more efficient and more expensive N-type modules.