(Yicai Global) April 12 -- Shares of BYD, the world's biggest seller of battery electric vehicles that boosted its net profit by more than five times last year, fell after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway reduced its shareholding to 10.9 percent.

BYD's Shenzhen-listed stock [SHE: 002594] closed 2.6 percent lower at CNY243.40 (USD35.30). Its Hong Kong-listed equity [HKG: 1211] slid 2.9 percent to HKD221.40 (USD28.20) as of 2.51 p.m.

Berkshire Hathaway sold nearly 2.5 million shares in the NEV manufacturer on March 31 with an average price of HKD217.70 apiece and a total value of about HKD540 million (USD68.8 million), according to a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange disclosed yesterday. As of March 31, the investor still held about 120 million Hong Kong-listed BYD shares, with its shareholding dropping to 10.9 percent from 11.13 percent.

Before this, the last time Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a shareholding reduction was on Feb. 3 when it still had a nearly 11.9 percent stake in the Chinese firm. This shows that the famous holding company has quietly sold some shares after that too but certain intervals of changes can go under the radar per bourse rules. However, the pace is slowing as before February, the previous transfer was just a week earlier on Jan. 27.

Future growth may be limited in China. The penetration rate of electric vehicles in China is about 30 percent, and in some cities, it is as high as 50 percent, several times that of the United States, Lin Jiayi, chief executive of Xuanjia Finance, said to Yicai Global. The balance that normal market competition can achieve is overdrawn by policy support and the influx of capital and profit expansion is not expected even under the most optimistic assumptions, Lin added.

Shenzhen-based BYD earned CNY16.6 billion (USD2.4 billion) in net profit in 2022, up by 446 percent from 2021, according to its earnings report released in late March. Revenue almost doubled to CNY424.1 billion (USD61.6 billion).

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi