For China’s rapidly-growing industry, 2009 will be remembered as the year when domestic sales skyrocketed despite global tumbles from more established players from Europe, Japan and the United States. Warren Buffett-backed BYD – or Build Your Dreams – says its net profit increased to 3.79 billion yuan, or about $555.4 million, up significantly over the 1.02 billion yuan the year before.
Rapidly increasing sales of BYD’s best seller, its F3 sedan (pictured), bolstered the automaker’s net profit. Of BYD’s 450,000 new car deliveries last year, 290,000 were of its F3 sedan, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Toyota ’s last-generation Corolla.
BYD is unique in that an American investor controls almost 10 percent of the Chinese automaker. Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings, the utility-oriented division of Berkshire Hathaway, has a 9.9 percent share in BYD. The company says about 53 percent of its revenue was derived from automobile sales; batteries and mobile handsets made up most of the rest of its sales.
The Chinese automaker says that it still plans to open a North American headquarters in 2010 to handle distribution of its e6 electric crossover vehicle, part of its goal to increase its export sales to about 10 percent of its business.
