A total of 19 real estate developers in China said their sales revenue exceeded CNY100 billion in the first half, which analysts said was not only due to the low base in Covid-19-plagued 2020, but also led by China’s strong recovery and stabilization of the sector’s performance. The nation’s 100 largest real estate companies saw average sales revenue from January to June soar 40% year-on-year to CNY69.3 billion despite tightening measures on land and financing. Their combined market share hit 56.6%, according to the China Index Academy. Compared to a year ago, there are six more developers whose half-year sales revenue surpassed the CNY100 billion mark.
Some 132 companies had a sales revenue of CNY10 billion or more, 25 more than a year ago. “Facing fierce competition and restrictions imposed to stabilize the property market, most real estate firms actively adjusted marketing strategies to further explore market demand,” said Hui Jianqiang, Research Director at Beijing Zhongfang-Yanxie Technology Service. “Their performance indicates the great demand in China, and the resilience of leading property developers.” Hui said the sector’s leaders grabbed a larger share of the market, while the less competitive companies lost ground if they did not come up with new measures to compete.
The top four real estate firms – Country Garden, China Evergrande, China Vanke and Sunac China – each reported more than CNY300 billion in first-half sales revenue. With an eye on the market’s latest trend, the 15 companies with sales revenue between CNY100 billion and CNY300 billion shifted their business focus to city clusters like the Yangtze River Delta region, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. A total of 23 firms had revenues between CNY50 billion and CNY100 billion. They mostly focussed on the commercial property market and the renovation of urban areas. Nearly 90% of the developers have achieved more than 40% of their whole year target, with 25 having completed more than half of their sales revenue target by the end of June, said Ding Zuyu, CEO of E-House (China) Enterprise Holdings.
However, the performance of listed property developers in the capital market is not as bright. Some 118 out of 170 companies or 69.4% saw their market value go down, while their combined market value shrank about 8.7% to CNY340 billion in the first six months, according to data from Leju.com. As the sector was hit hard by Covid-19 last year, property developers tended to set more conservative goals for this year, said Liu Shui, Deputy Director of Research at the China Index Academy, as reported by the China Daily.
