Strong first-half results put firms ahead of annual targets

Favourable commodity prices and windfall incomes have allowed a number of companies to reach full-year profit targets by the halfway point of 2026.

Only half the year has passed, but Q2 2026 earnings show many companies growing fast enough to meet most or far exceed their full-year profit plans.

Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical JSC (BSR) reported H1 net revenue of more than 104.6 trillion VND (4 billion USD), up 52% from a year earlier. Its after-tax profit reached nearly 15.73 trillion VND, nearly 13 times the level posted in the first half of 2025. Against the full-year profit target of over 2.16 trillion VND approved at its annual general meeting of shareholders (AGM), BSR achieved about 727% of the annual goal.

In the second quarter alone, BSR posted after-tax profit of more than 7.46 trillion VND, almost nine times higher than a year earlier. The result was driven by more supportive conditions for the oil refining business.

Fertiliser producers also benefited from commodity price moves. Petrovietnam Ca Mau Fertiliser JSC (DCM) reported first-half after-tax profit of about 1.86 trillion VND, up nearly 55% from a year earlier. With a full-year target of more than 1.18 trillion VND, it already exceeded annual goal by about 57%.

Petrovietnam Fertiliser and Chemicals Corporation (DPM) posted after-tax profit attributable to parent-company shareholders of nearly 1.31 trillion VND, up more than 115% year-on-year. Its full-year target is just 680 billion VND. In the second quarter alone, DPM’s profit topped 900 billion VND, up 125% from a year earlier.

Petrovietnam Power Corporation (PV Power) reported first-half net revenue of clsoe to 32.64 trillion VND, up 86% year-on-year. Its after-tax profit exceeded 5 trillion VND, more than four times the level in the same period last year and about 4.5 times its full-year target.

In the real estate sector, major developer Vinhomes (VHM) is also closing in on its full-year target, despite setting a highly ambitious profit goal for 2026. In the first six months, the company posted consolidated after-tax profit of over 52.09 trillion VND, up nearly 380% year on year and equivalent to 86.8% of its full-year target. Handovers at Vinhomes Ocean Park 2, Ocean Park 3 and Vinhomes Green Paradise continued to be key drivers of the company’s business performance during the period.

Conservative targets quickly prove too modest

Alongside favourable market conditions, stronger core operations and non-recurring gains, some companies also hit annual targets early because they set conservative plans at the start of the year.

For example, at the 2026 AGM of Nam Viet JSC (Navifico), shareholders representing 22% of voting shares voted against the proposed profit target. The Board of Directors set this year’s profit target at less than 13 billion VND, below both the company’s 2025 target and actual performance, and only around 60% of the profit recorded in 2024. In fact, after the first six months, the company had already posted more than 13 billion VND in pre-tax profit, surpassing its full-year target ahead of schedule.

The gap between planned and actual performance depends not only on a company’s growth capacity but also, to a large extent, on the assumptions underpinning its plans. When business conditions turn out to be more favourable than expected, targets set with a wide margin of safety can quickly prove too conservative.

However, beating a full-year target ahead of schedule does not guarantee profits will continue growing at the same pace for the rest of the year. For companies benefiting from commodity prices, cyclical factors can reverse. Compensation payments, provision reversals and other extraordinary income are unlikely to recur regularly. The second-half outlook should therefore be based on companies’ ability to sustain profit from core operations./.