Economic Daily: Are the profits of 30 million Chinese cars really not as good as Toyota's?

Recently, the viewpoint that "the profit of 30 million Chinese cars is not as good as Toyota's" has attracted attention. The reason is that at a forum, an expert pointed out that the total profit of selling 30 million cars in China is not as good as the net profit of over 9 million cars from Toyota, indicating that manufacturing capacity has not translated into profit. However, looking solely at the data comparison, this expression may not be precise. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, last year China's car sales reached 31.436 million, with a profit of 462.26 billion yuan. Toyota's global sales for the 2024 fiscal year were 10.27 million units, with a net profit of 4.765 trillion yen. This means that the profit of 30 million Chinese cars is still much higher than that of Toyota. Nevertheless, the viewpoint that "the profit of 30 million Chinese cars is not as good as Toyota's" does reflect the imbalance between the scale and efficiency of China's automobile industry, exposing deep-seated contradictions in the industry's transformation and upgrading. Taking 18 major listed car companies such as BYD and Great Wall Motors as examples, their total net profit last year was less than 80 billion yuan, only equivalent to one-third of Toyota's. What's even more awkward is that Toyota earns 23,000 yuan per car sold, while the average profit per car for Chinese domestic brands is less than half of that, indicating a need for deep reflection.