Konka expects profit to rise 50-100%

KONKA Group Co. said it expected first-half profit to rise 50 to 100 percent on increased sales of high-margin products.

The Shenzhen-listed maker of television and mobile phones didn’t give an earnings figure in a statement yesterday. Net income was 42.5 million yuan (US$6 million) in the first half of 2007, it said.

Shanghai Airlines posts loss

SHANGHAI Airlines said yesterday that it plunged into the red last year because of rising fuel prices and fierce competition.

The airline made a net loss of 435.1 million yuan (US$62 million) in 2007, compared with a profit of 9.3 million yuan in 2006, although revenues surged 23 percent to 12.3 billion yuan on the back of strong traffic growth. Shanghai Airlines said tough price competition caused it to lose money on its new Shanghai-Hong Kong route last year, while losses at its new international air cargo subsidiary took 90 million yuan off the airline’s bottom line. Shanghai Airlines predicted fuel price and competitive pressures would remain heavy this year, but said it hoped to improve earnings by increasing efficiency and sales efforts around the time of the Beijing Olympics.

Strong sales boost FAW Car profit

SHENZHEN-LISTED automaker FAW Car Co. said yesterday its first-quarter net profit more than tripled from the same period last year on strong sales.

FAW Car said its net profit for the three months ended March was 311.76 million yuan (US$44.54 million), up from 86.34 million yuan a year earlier. The company’s revenue rose 71 percent to 4.95 billion yuan in the first quarter from 2.89 billion yuan in the year-earlier period. The company said it sold 28,000 vehicles in the January-March period, up more than 70 percent from the same period a year earlier.

Shanghai Petrochemical swings to net loss

SINOPEC Shanghai Petrochemical Co., a fuel producer and China’s largest ethylene producer by capacity, said yesterday it swung to a net loss in the first quarter on ballooning refining losses.

The firm said it posted a net loss of 200.4 million yuan (US$28.6 million) for the three months ended March 31 under Chinese accounting standards, compared with a net profit of 1.07 billion yuan a year earlier.