60% of Chinese companies see net profit growth in 2018

Nearly 60 percent of Chinese companies saw net profit growth last year, and about 11.29 percent of them achieved a more than 100 percent increase, China Securities Journal reported on Tuesday.

About 1,988 companies' net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company increased on a yearly basis in 2018, according to annual reports from 3,400 companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets.

Around 976 companies' net profit growth rate surpassed 30 percent, and about 384 companies' net profits increased more than 100 percent in 2018, statistics from financial data analyzer Wind showed.

Total operating revenue of the 3,400 companies reached 43.91 trillion yuan ($6.52 trillion) in 2018, up 12.79 percent year-on-year. Net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company increased 2.67 percent year-on-year to 3.45 trillion yuan in the same period, the report said.

The net profit increase rate of industries including construction materials, petroleum, petrochemicals, steel, iron, food, beverage and retail, increased more than 15 percent last year.

The Bank industry's net profit increased 5.5 percent to 1.47 trillion yuan in total volume in 2018, accounting for about 40 percent of A-share companies' total net profit.

The performance of big companies was good but some small and medium-sized companies didn't fare very well due to downward economic pressure in 2018, said Yang Delong, chief economist at the Shenzhen-based First Seafront Fund.

However, with the implementation of policies to cut taxes and fees, the overall performance of small and medium-sized companies is expected to improve in 2019, Yang said.

The performance of small and medium-sized companies may have hit bottom, and with the improvement of the finance environment their performance is projected to improve in 2019, according to a report by Everbright Securities.

This projection has been vindicated by reports from about 3,100 listed companies on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock bourses for the first quarter this year, during which these companies' operating revenue reached 6.3 trillion yuan, up 28.57 percent on a yearly basis.

These companies' net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company increased 35.72 percent year-on-year to 557.1 trillion yuan in Q1 2019.

In the same period, 1,859 companies' net profit increased year-on-year, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the 3,100 total. Among these, about 953 companies had net profit increases of more than 30 percent, the report said.

Companies that doubled their net profit in Q1 this year were mainly in segmented industries including mechanical equipment, fine chemicals, computers, electronics, aquaculture and brokers.

The performance of the breeding and consumption sectors will improve this year; benefiting from 5G commercialization, the profitability of the electronics sector will increase and the new energy automobile industry will have more room for development, Yang said.

About 3,627 companies are currently listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, with 1,468 on the former and 2,159 on the latter, according the exchanges' official websites.