Shanghai (ZXZC)- Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., Ltd (Changan Automobile) released a review of its 2019 semi-annual performance on July 15, with an expected net loss of around RMB1.9 billion to RMB2.6 billion attributable to shareholders of the public company, plunging 218.04% to 261.53% year on year.

The automaker also forecasted basic earnings per share of –RMB0.4 to –RMB0.54 for the first half of 2019, compared with the positive RMB0.34 for the same period a year ago.

The profit downturn primarily resulted from its sales decrease during the reporting period (from January 1, 2019 to June 30, 2019), the company said.

Changan Automobile announced last week that it sales for the first six months slumped 31.7% from the previous year to 825,208 units with none of subsidiaries posting positive growth.

It is worth mentioning that the automaker ranked eighth among Chinese automakers by monthly PV wholesales volume with 70,237 vehicles sold in June (PV hereby refers to locally-produce cars, SUVs, MPVs and minibuses), according to the data released by the China Passenger Car Association.

However, the nice PV performance should be partly attributable to the discounts offered by car dealers which were eager to sell out cars that don’t meet China Stage 6 Emission Standard before the new stricter rules kicked in, while whittling down profits to some extent.

It is reported that the starting price of the Changan CS85 COUPE 1.5T, a new mid-sized SUV model hitting the market on June 3, stands at only RMB119,900.

For most Chinese automakers, joint ventures are their major earning contributors. Nevertheless, Changan Automobile's two joint ventures, Changan Ford and Changan Mazda, suffered 67% and 32.2% year-on-year plunge respectively in Jan.-Jun. sales.