Beijing (Reuters) — Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD reported an 11.5% rise in third-quarter net profit on Wednesday as it maintained strong sales momentum thanks to government recovery incentives.

Net profit reached 11.6 billion yuan ($1.63 billion) in the July-September quarter, the company said in a stock filing. For the first nine months, net profit increased 18.1% to 25.2 billion yuan.

With third-quarter revenue up 24% year-on-year to 201.1 billion yuan ($28.24 billion), BYD’s quarterly revenue surpassed Tesla’s for the first time , whose revenue for the July-September quarter reached $25.2 billion.

Tesla still beat BYD in global electric vehicle sales between July and September.

BYD, whose cars accounted for more than a third of China’s total electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle sales this year, broke a monthly sales record in September and its quarterly sales also hit a new high in the third quarter.

The local champion and its peers such as Tesla have benefited from the tailwind of expanded old-versus-new stimulus measures for greener cars. Last month, car sales in China ended a five-month decline due to increased subsidies, industry data showed.

By the end of October, 1.57 million applicants had registered to benefit from a national subsidy of up to more than $2,800 each to trade in older cars for greener ones, according to official data.

Local governments in China have also distributed up to 20,000 yuan in additional subsidies to electric vehicle buyers under programs that expire at the end of the year.

BYD had led the growth with aggressive discounts on its best-selling models. Its best quarter was mainly driven by strong growth in plug-in hybrid sales, which jumped 75.6% year-on-year to 685,830 units in the third quarter, thanks to its latest generation of plug-in hybrid technologies that enable users to save more fuel costs.

In comparison, BYD’s pure electric vehicle (rather than hybrid) sales growth slowed to 2.7% to 443,426 units in the quarter and lost share in the electric vehicle segment to other electric competitors in China, according to Reuters calculations.

BYD, which still sells more than 90% of its cars in China, set a higher annual sales target for this year, a Morgan Stanley report showed in September, and aimed to double its exports to 450,000 vehicles this year, a downward revision of the annual figure. overseas shipments target of 500,000 set in March.

BYD, which is leading an offensive on European markets despite additional tariffs, sold 94,477 cars abroad in the third quarter, an increase of 32.6% compared to the previous year.