"Top tipper" Poly Development: Sold the most, fell the hardest
The real estate industry continues to adjust, and even the "top dog" Poly Development is struggling to sell.
Recently, Poly Development (600048.SH) released its sales report. In November 2025, Poly Development achieved a contracted area of 458,200 square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 66.79%; contracted sales amounted to 18.019 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 24.93%. From January to November, Poly Development's cumulative contracted sales reached 240.866 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 21.80%.
Based on this calculation, Poly's sales in 2025 are highly likely to fall below 300 billion yuan; in 2024, Poly Development achieved total contracted sales of 323.029 billion yuan for the year.
Guangzhou remains Poly Development's largest revenue source.
According to the Guangzhou real estate sales ranking released by CRIC, Poly Development sold a total of 49.067 billion yuan in Guangzhou in the first 11 months. Compared to the sales in the first 10 months, Poly Development's contracted sales in Guangzhou reached 14.493 billion yuan in November.
In other words, Guangzhou alone accounted for over 80% of Poly Development's sales in November.
What helped Poly hold its stronghold was the Guangzhou land king project it acquired in September last year for nearly 11.8 billion yuan. On November 7, Poly Yuexi Bay opened for sale, achieving sales of 10 billion yuan, with an average transaction price of about 170,000 yuan per square meter, becoming Poly's highest-selling property of the year.
In November, while sales were booming in Guangzhou, Poly was equally quiet in other cities.
According to CRIC's sales data for Beijing and Shanghai, Poly Development's sales in Beijing in November were only 1.026 billion yuan, ranking 10th on the Beijing real estate sales list. In Shanghai, Poly Development's equity sales in November were 2.499 billion yuan, with its sales ranking for the first 11 months dropping one spot to third compared to October.
Overall, Poly Development's total sales in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou in November reached 18.018 billion yuan; in other words, Poly Development's sales in other cities across the country were almost zero in November. In Shenzhen, Poly Development didn't even make it into the top 20 in sales.
In fact, as the real estate market diverges, to avoid risks, most real estate companies have concentrated their resources in first-tier and other core cities, which have long become the absolute main battlefield for leading real estate companies. In 2024, China Merchants Shekou's investment in first-tier cities accounted for 59%, with Shanghai being one of its main battlefields; in Beijing, Yuexiu and China Resources Land have also been expanding their presence, dominating local sales rankings; the Shenzhen market is firmly occupied by local real estate companies deeply rooted there.
As the top real estate sales company, Poly's weak presence in first-tier cities is quite noticeable. According to CRIC, as of the first half of 2025, Poly's land reserves in first-tier cities accounted for only 12.8%, while third- and fourth-tier cities accounted for 43.8%, and second-tier cities accounted for 43%. The inventory pressure in third- and fourth-tier cities is particularly prominent.
From the financial report, a large number of third- and fourth-tier properties have been dragging down the profitability of this "top dog."
In the first half of 2025, Poly Development's real estate sales transfer income was 105.1 billion yuan, with total operating revenue of 116.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 16.08%; total profit for the same period was 9.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 29.7%; net profit attributable to the parent company was 2.711 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 63.5%.
The performance in the third quarter was even worse. From July to September, Poly Development recorded a net loss of 780 million yuan despite a nearly 30% year-on-year increase in revenue. In the first three quarters, Poly Development's net profit was only 1.93 billion yuan, with a net profit margin as low as 1%.
To address its shortcomings in first-tier cities, Poly Development has been taking frequent actions. In December last year, Li Hongliang, former deputy general manager of Poly Development's board office, was sent to the front line to serve as general manager of the Beijing company.
This year, Poly has been active in Beijing's land auction market, spending nearly 9 billion yuan in the first half of the year to acquire land in core areas such as Chaoyang and Haidian. However, compared to Yuexiu, which also hails from Guangzhou, Poly has already fallen far behind. In the first 11 months of this year, Yuexiu's full-caliber sales in the Beijing market exceeded 28 billion yuan, twice that of Poly Development.
Due to mostly holding low-threshold improvement projects, the sell-through rate of Poly's existing projects in Beijing is also not optimistic. Located in Shunyi, Poly Yijing Hexu obtained permits twice in 2024, but a year later, the sell-through rate was still less than 50%; located in Shijingshan, Beijing Poly Jingshan Hexu, which opened in 2023, had a sell-through rate of less than 30% after a year on the market.
With the failure to break through in the Beijing market, Poly has placed another key market for this year in Shanghai. From January to October this year, Poly Development acquired 8 plots in Shanghai, with equity amounts totaling 13.925 billion yuan, accounting for 24% of total investment, making it the city with the largest layout effort.
However, Poly's top position in Shanghai is also unstable. From August to November, Poly Development, China Resources Land, and China Merchants Shekou took turns topping the equity sales rankings, leaving the suspense of Shanghai's sales champion to the last month.
Overall, although Poly has maintained its position as the top real estate sales company, as the real estate industry competition enters the second half, real estate companies have long stopped focusing solely on scale. Under the halo of being the "top dog," Poly's structural shortcomings in first-tier core cities make it difficult to enjoy the highest-quality, most risk-resistant profits in the market, and it continues to be dragged down by a large amount of assets stuck in lower-tier cities.
The continued pressure on stock prices and price-to-earnings ratios also reflects the capital market's caution and skepticism about the sustainability of its growth model. As of the close on December 11, Poly Development's stock price has fallen nearly 26% this year, far exceeding the declines of state-owned enterprises such as China Merchants Shekou, Yuexiu Property, and Greentown China, while the stock prices of China Resources Land and China Overseas Land have risen by 31.8% and 5.33%, respectively.
It seems that Poly, as the "top dog," really needs to think hard about how to shift its focus from chasing scale to accumulating profits if it wants to stay stable and make money.
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