Shanghai (ZXZC)- GAC Group announced its net profit attributable to shareholders slumped 39.3% year on year to RMB6.618 billion in 2019, and earnings per share dropped to RMB0.65 from RMB1.07 in 2018. Besides, the full-year revenue amounted to RMB59.234 billion, representing a double-digit decrease of 17.17%.

For the year of 2019, China's auto sales slid 8.2% to 25,769,000 units, according to the CAAM, due to such factors as the downward pressure on macro economy, volatile trade situation, switch of emission standard, and NEV subsidy phase-out.

（Photo source: GAC Toyota)

Affected by the general sluggish climate, GAC Group recorded a year-on-year decline of 3.99% in 2019 sales, but still outpaced the overall market. Meanwhile, its market share climbed by 0.35 percentage points.

The SUV outputs and sales plunged 40.81% and 40.10% respectively to 268,161 units and 267,453 units, while the MPV unit achieved over 50% growth in both outputs and sales.

Car sales grew 4.4% to 58,365 units, but the outputs declined 10.29%, mainly attributable to the strengthened reduction of inventories.

（Photo source: GAC NE)

GAC NE, the group's self-owned NEV unit, saw its sales hit a new high of 42,003 units, more than doubled over the previous year. Notably, it achieved an impressive surge of 100% during the coronavirus-hit February with 1,619 new vehicles sold.

Aside from the downturn in revenue and net profit, the group's gross profit plummeted 78.14% to RMB2.523 billion, and the gross profit margin was down by 11.72 percentage points to 4.23%.

GAC Group is primarily engaged in production of complete vehicles and auto parts, services of business and trade, as well as finance business and others. Of those, only the commerce & trade service unit accomplished growth in annual revenue.

The investment in R&D business was still improved in spite of the sales decrease. Last year, the group pumped roughly RMB5.276 billion in R&D, which was RMB387 million more than that of a year ago, as a result of greater efforts on building independent R&D and innovation capabilities.