Firms post strong business growth in Q3 as demand rebounds
Travellers crowd a railway station Shanghai before the national holiday.
Overseas-listed firms, including Trip and Xiaomi, posted business growth in the third quarter, signaling a booming economy and rebounded demand on consumption and finance in China.
HK-listed Trip Group on Tuesday posted a revenue jump of 99 percent to 13.7 billion yuan (US$1.9 billion) in the third quarter, as "domestic and international businesses continued to show robust recovery," according to Trip, China's biggest tourism platform.
The net profit for the quarter was 4.6 billion yuan, which improved significantly from 245 million yuan a year earlier, according to the Shanghai-based company.
"Both domestic and international travel experienced a remarkable rebound, thanks to the robust summer travel demand. This shows just how eager travelers are to explore the world," said James Liang, Trip executive chairman.
In China, the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays in September and October sparked a travel and consumption frenzy.
During the National Day holidays, or Golden Week, domestic tourism revenue was 753.43 billion yuan, a 1.5 percent increase from that in 2019, according to China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
A Xiaomi store in South China made its debut in 2023.
HK-listed consumer electronics giant Xiaomi Corp turned to green with net profit of 4.87 billion yuan in the third quarter, compared with a net loss of 1.47 billion yuan a year earlier. Revenue reached 70.89 billion yuan with a 0.6 percent growth, the first positive growth in the recent six quarters, the company said on Monday.
Xiaomi benefited from the recovered smartphone market, which had posted double-digit sales declines in recent years, hit by the pandemic and market saturation.
The Chinese smartphone market saw a modest decline of 6.7 percent in the third quarter, but the market is expected to bottom out and rebound soon, said researcher firm International Data Corp.
It's noteworthy that Xiaomi announced it would start mass production of its long-awaited electric cars in the first half of next year. Its research spending hit 5 billion yuan, covering innovation business such as electric cars and robots, an increase of 22 percent from a year earlier.
On Tuesday, New York-listed Finvolution posted revenue growth of 7.6 percent to 3.20 billion yuan in the third quarter. The Shanghai-based online consumer finance marketplace provider also posted a net profit of US$77.6 million.
By September, Finvolution offered digital and marketplace service for 88 finance organizations and 25 million users. It also boosted credit and loan service for 448,000 small and micro-sized enterprises valued 12.3 billion yuan in the quarter, a 9 percent from a year ago.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and individual businesses are backbone of China's economy and primary employers of millions of workers, industry experts said.
Small and medium-sized enterprises and individual businesses are the backbone of China's economy and primary employers of millions of workers.
