BYD's nine-month R&D expense fell 17 percent as third-quarter profit rose 28 percent

BYD filed its third quarterly report with the Hong Kong exchange on the evening of October 29. The consolidated income statement records research and development expenses of RMB 36,277,138,000 for the nine months to September 30, against RMB 43,748,447,000 for the same period of 2025 — a reduction of RMB 7.47 billion, or 17.1 percent.

Third-quarter operating revenue was RMB 221,488,251,000, up 13.59 percent year on year, and net profit attributable to shareholders was RMB 10,019,570,000, up 28.08 percent. Over nine months the picture is flatter: revenue of RMB 566,303,672,000 was essentially unchanged at 0.01 percent growth, and attributable net profit of RMB 22,344,978,000 was 4.24 percent lower than a year earlier. Government grants charged to the nine months came to RMB 1,707,076,000, which the filing describes as primarily related to automobiles and automobile-related products.

Part of the reduction has a visible counterweight. The consolidated balance sheet shows development expenditure, the line that holds capitalized development work, rising from RMB 5,971,312,000 at the start of the period to RMB 7,447,997,000 at the end — an increase of RMB 1.48 billion, or 24.7 percent. The report does not explain the relationship between the two movements.

The report does carry a table of attributable reasons for the line items that moved most sharply, but research and development is not one of them, and neither is capitalized development expenditure. A search of the document returns no occurrence of the word software, nor of the company’s God’s Eye driver-assistance brand or its Xuanji vehicle architecture. So the filing establishes the size of the reduction without saying which programs absorbed it. The A-share version of the same report was published through cninfo on October 30, alongside a separate announcement on credit and asset impairment provisions for the nine months.