Shanghai (ZXZC)- Jiangling Motors Co., Ltd. (JMC) may see its net profits attributable to shareholders of the listed company in 2018 plunge 87% year on year to RMB91.83 million and the basic earnings per share was RMB 0.11, RMB0.69 less than a year ago, the automaker announced on January 22.

JMC ascribes its profit slump to the sales drop, worsening of marketing structure as well as the intensive investment in new products and novel technologies.

According to sales data announced by the carmaker, JMC's vehicle outputs and sales amounted to 286,808 units and 285,066 units in 2018, felling 7.83% and 8.05% respectively over a year ago. Particularly, the full-year sales of the Yusheng SUVs tumbled 76.36% from the year-ago period to only 6,892 units. Meanwhile, the yearly sales of the Everest, a SUV model under Ford brand, totaled only 5,699 units with a sharp year-on-year decline of 42.83%. The SUV sales slump directly leads to the negative performance in net profits.

Actually, JMC was seeing its profits slide year by year since 2015. Published figures show that the company's net profits in 2015, 2016 and 2017 were RMB2.2 billion, RMB1.318 billion and RMB691 million, presenting a steep year-by-year decline. The same reason—marketing structure change and intensive investment in new products and technologies—was given when JMC spoke of the previous profit downturn.