Chinese property developer Evergrande Real Estate Group said on Monday its first-half core profit, which excludes revaluation gains, surged 57 percent as sales hit a record level in value terms on pent-up demand for new homes.
Predicting more modest growth in the second half, the country's second-largest developer by sales said its core profit climbed to 10.2 billion yuan ($1.60 billion) from 6.5 billion yuan in the same period a year earlier.
Net profit grew 33 percent from a year ago to 9.4 billion yuan. Analysts don't offer estimates for interim results for Chinese developers.
"Benefiting from the further release of pent-up demand for improved housing, sales will be boosted continuously in the second half of the year," Chairman Xu Jiayin said in a statement.
The executive said he expects average transaction prices to rise by a single-digit percentage for the whole year.
"However, as the area of land acquired last year decreased by 14 percent, the estimated area of newly commenced works will decrease at a single-digit [pace] for the whole year."
Besides real estate, the company also actively diversified its businesses into other sectors such as beverage, which did not perform well though. Evergrande's spring water unit recorded a loss of 555.4 million yuan in the first five months of 2015, according to a filing to the Chinese bourse.
In late July, the company - the most indebted of China's top 10 developers - decided to get the loss-making unit listed on the Chinese mainland stock market.
Evergrande shares closed up 3.2 percent, before the earnings were announced, compared with a 0.3 percent gain in the wider Hong Kong market.
