Dongfeng Motor Group Co's net profit rises 4.2 percent to US$1.06 billion in first half

Dongfeng Motor Group Co's net profit rose 4.2 percent to 7.04 billion yuan (US$1.06 billion) annually amid strong growth of commercial vehicles, according to the company's half year financial report released today.

The company's sales of 221,400 commercial vehicles in the first half year jumped 26.4 percent from a year ago, exceeding market expectations.

China's commercial vehicle market grew 17.4 percent in the first half of this year, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

"The growth rate of Dongfeng's commercial vehicles is 9 percentage points higher than the average market growth," said Zhu Yanfeng, chief executive officer at Dongfeng Motor Co.

The growth in sales of commercial vehicles is driven by heavy trucks and light trucks whose sales soared 70.1 percent and 12.3 percent respectively in the first six months.

"Sales of commercial vehicles rose due to new models launched and our capturing of this market segment," Zhu said.

Dongfeng has been ranked the No. 1 company by sales of commercial vehicles in the first half year, according to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

The company's revenue rose 1 percent from the same period last year to 57.69 billion yuan in the first half year, the report said.

But revenue of passenger vehicles fell 26.9 percent to 26.1 billion yuan in the first half of this year, the company said.

Chinese financial news Yicai said this was due to a drop in sales of vehicles produced by Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile Co Ltd.

Yicai blamed the sales drop to the higher price of Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile vehicles compared with the same type of models made by its rivals as well as the company's failure to meet demand of young consumers.