Benefiting from the recovery in domestic and international bus market demand, Yutong Bus's overall sales volume increased in 2023.

According to its 2023 report, during the reporting period, Yutong Bus sold 36,518 buses, up 20.93% year on year; operating income of 27.042 billion yuan, up 24.05% year on year; realized net profit of 1,817 billion yuan, up 139.36% year on year; and the board of directors proposed a dividend of 1.5 yuan/share to shareholders.

Yutong Bus's capacity utilization rate in 2024 is still low. Li Panpan, general manager of Yutong Bus, revealed in response to investors' questions at the online performance conference on April 16 that in 2023, the design production capacity of the Yutong Bus Production Plant will be 65,000 vehicles per year. The annual report shows that the actual production for the current period is 37,239. Based on this calculation, the capacity utilization rate is less than 60%.

The reason behind the low utilization rate of production capacity is that demand is still low. Data show that in 2023, total demand in the domestic large and medium-sized bus industry fell 10.88% year on year; the complete withdrawal of new energy subsidies combined with the combined effects of slow recovery in bus travel volume and high operating pressure on bus companies led to a 46.47% year-on-year decline in bus sales; the decline in population also caused school bus sales to drop 23.24% year on year.

Affected by the above factors, in 2023, Yutong Bus's domestic market revenue was 13.697 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.71%.

Yutong Bus expects revenue of 32.9 billion yuan in 2024, an increase of 21.6% over the previous year. Among them, on April 3, Yutong Bus released sales data for the first quarter of 2024, with sales volume of 7,731 vehicles, an increase of 74.16% over the previous year.

The reason for high revenue growth expectations may stem from industry recovery and overseas business.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers released data for the first quarter, showing that in January-March of this year, bus production and sales were all 114,000 units, up 11.3% and 13.6%, respectively.

The reason for this is, on the one hand, that domestic residents' travel demand, especially travel demand, has increased, and domestic tourist passenger transportation and other markets have recovered; on the other hand, more overseas regions have post-epidemic recovery and reconstruction needs, and there are also many more regions with large replacement and new demand for public transportation.

In fact, overseas markets will become the main driving force for Yutong Bus's performance growth in 2023.

In terms of sales volume, Yutong Bus's export sales volume exceeded 10,000 units for the first time in 2023, up 78.9% to 10,165 vehicles, including 1,463 new energy exports. In terms of revenue, Yutong Bus's overseas revenue last year was 10.406 billion yuan, up 85.98% year on year, and gross margin increased 1.63% to 31.66% year on year.

According to Zhang Tianrui, investor relations manager of Yutong Bus, by the end of 2023, nearly 100,000 buses of all types had been exported, including 4,800 new energy buses.

At the same time, in recent years, with the gradual withdrawal of new energy subsidies, the market gradually returned to rationality, the withdrawal of small brands accelerated, the pattern of leading enterprises was relatively stable, and their market share continued to increase. In 2023, the total market share of the top 5 bus companies was 79.88%, an increase of 7.85 percentage points over 2022.

Wu Yilun, financial director of Yutong Bus, said that future market competition will rely more on comprehensive competitiveness in products, services, and brands, which is generally beneficial to leading companies.

According to Yu Li, director of Yutong Bus, Yutong Bus also continues to promote high-end, mid-range and high-end strategies. Among them, overseas products must continue to achieve high-end, mid-range and high-end, and establish Yutong's international brand and reputation in overseas markets; domestic products must achieve high-end, de-low-end, and bridge the gap with rivals; and parts must be high-end, mid-range, and low-end through the driving of the vehicle.