Issuer:BNPP
21 pages
Date:March 2009
Snapshot:
Sharp sales growth in early 2009
Growth in sales is better-than-expected
Property developers registered a remarkable growth in sales in February
this year. For the companies under our coverage, sales in January-
February this year are up by a hefty 50-600% y-y. However, we have
also seen that growth in sales volume surpassed growth in value,
meaning ASP also come down by a marked margin. The decline in ASP
is partially due to location and product mix (eg Vanke were selling more
car parks while COLI were selling more products in Western China this
year). Although one may wonder if this abrupt growth is sustainable and
may link to a strong rally in A-share market, we view the growth very
positively. Pent up demand looks strong and sales in value is trending
up.
Price continue to head south, according to NBS
According to latest NBS figures, overall property price in China fell
marginally by 1.2% y-y in February 2009, down from -0.9% registered in
January 2009. Of the 70 cities being surveyed, only 17 of them
registered improvement in y-y change in price. However, y-y change in
price for primary housing in most tier-one cities registered positive
change. One may think NBS figures are good in showing trend but not
absolute change. If we use Vanke and COLI’s ASP as proxy, January-
February ASP were lower than 2008 full year ASP by 10-15%. Yet,
comparability is not high due to product and location mix (eg Launch of
more decorated units, car parks swing ASP noticeably). We believe ASP
is on an average lowered by ~15% y-y in 2008.
CRL, Shimao heavily outperformed in sales. BUY
CRL registered approximately 500%, and Shimao approximately 190%
increase in YTD sales by value, and noticeably outperformed their
peers. BUY retained. We believe that market will now focus on the
upcoming result announcement for the size of landbank provision as
Vanke made a sizable impairment of RMB1.2b last year. Although we
believe such non-cash provision is backward looking and most
developers had already slowed down acquisition noticeably last year,
the uncertainty on size of provision, if any, could still be an overhang.
We maintain NEUTRAL on China property.