Fuyao Glass' profit drops 9% on rising costs
Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co., China's largest automotive glass manufacturer, said its profit fell 9 percent to 800 million yuan ($125 million) in the first half of this year because of higher fuel and raw material prices.
In the first six months, revenue from Fuyao's automotive glass rose 21.8 percent year-on-year to 4.2 billion yuan while revenue from its float glass, which is used in nonautomotive sectors, edged up 0.3 percent to 880.1 million yuan, according to the company's mid-2011 financial report.
Because of sharp price rises of fuel oil and sodium carbonate, the main raw material used in glass making, the company's gross profit margin fell 4.4 percentage points to 37.1 percent.
Fuyao, of Fuqing of east China's Fujian province, has more than half of China's automotive glass market and has become a certified glass supplier to automakers including General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Audi, Bentley, Volkswagen, Daimler, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Volvo, Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota and Honda.
In North America, Fuyao opened a distribution center in 2008 in suburban Detroit to handle shipments of glass from China to North America. In the first half of this year, the company achieved 485.5 million yuan in sales revenue in North America, up 36 percent year-on-year.
