China Earnings to Lose Steam on Brutal Quarter for Biggest Firms
- Cautious consumers, rising material costs pummel companies
- Property, power generation sectors showing worst profit drops
Shoppers at market in Shenzhen earlier in September.
Photographer: Gilles Sabrie/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
A combination of raw material inflation and weak consumer spending has made the third quarter a brutal period for China’s biggest companies, with property, agriculture and power generation sectors set to show the worst plunges in profit.
Roughly a quarter of China’s over 4,000-listed firms have already published earnings or preliminary results for the season. While still early, analysts concur that overall year-on-year growth will be disappointing, accentuated by the comparison to last year’s high base when China was the only major economy that grew during the pre-vaccine stage of the pandemic.