Ping An reports first half-year profit increase in three years

China’s largest insurer by market value, Ping An Insurance, has reported a 3.9% increase in net profit for the first half of 2022. This is the group’s first half-year increase in three years.

It filed a CNY60.3 billion net profit with the Hong Kong stock exchange earlier this week, compared to the CNY58 billion net profit it recorded a year earlier. Before that, the group suffered two consecutive years of net profit decreases in the first half-year as it grappled with an exposure to indebted developer China Fortune worth CNY54 billion, Channel News Asia reported.

Ping An’s gross written premiums for the first half of 2022 fell by 2.5% to CNY283.6 billion, while its number of retail customers rose by 3.2% from the prior half-year to 122 million.

Despite the results, Ping An remained cautious about the “severe challenges” the company could face in the second half of the year.

“Substantial uncertainties will remain regarding COVID-19 as well as the domestic and overseas environment in the second half of 2022,” its chairman said.