Vanke posts 11.5% growth in Q1 profit

China Vanke Co, one of China's largest property developers, reported continuous increase of profit in the first quarter of 2020 and its contracted sales almost doubled in March, showing a steady recovery from the brunt of the coronavirus outbreak

The profit of the Shenzhen-based real estate company in the first three months climbed 11.5 percent to 1.25 billion yuan.

Its contracted sales area and amount in March reached 3,781,000 square meters and 54.94 billion yuan, respectively, up by 118 percent and 96 percent over the previous month, which was also the peak time of the epidemic in China.

However, it suffered falling revenue due to the crisis as it raked in only 47.77 billion yuan in the first quarter, a year-on-year drop of 1.2 percent.

Battered by the pandemic, China's overall property market has been struggling in recent months. The total floor area of new construction and the area of commodity housing sold both declined by over 26 percent than the year before, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Property bellwethers have been the first to the track of recovery since last month. Besides Vanke, sales volume of another leading property player Evergrande also recorded remarkable rise of 38.7 percent over February.