Tesla has achieved positive profitability for eleven consecutive quarters.
After the local time on Wednesday, Tesla announced the first quarter of 2022 financial report: revenue, profit and gross margin were higher than the market consensus expectations. During the earnings period, Tesla's revenue was $18.756 billion, up 81% year-on-year, exceeding market expectations of $17.8 billion. Among them, the revenue of the automotive industry reached 16.861 billion US dollars, an increase of 87% year-on-year.
(Source: Tesla earnings report)
Tesla's adjusted earnings per share (EPS) under non-GAAP caliber in the first quarter of this year was $3.22, an increase of 246% year-on-year, which is also tesla's 11 consecutive quarters of positive earnings.
The company's adjusted net profit was $3.736 billion, up 255% year-on-year and more than $1 billion for five consecutive quarters, according to the financial report data. Gross profit in the first quarter was $5.46 billion, up 147% year-on-year, and gross margin under GAAP caliber was 29.1%, up 7.79% from the first quarter of last year, higher than analysts' expectations of 25.8% and 24.7% in the fourth quarter of last year.
In terms of segmented business, Tesla's automotive business gross profit during the earnings reporting period was $5.539 billion, an increase of 132% year-on-year, and the gross profit margin under the GAAP caliber was 32.9%, 6.36 percentage points higher than the first quarter of last year.
Tesla said part of the company's revenue growth was due to an increase in the number of vehicles delivered and an increase in the average selling price.
(Source: Tesla earnings report)
In terms of vehicle deliveries, the total delivery of 310048 vehicles in the first quarter, an increase of 68% year-on-year, and the global average inventory cycle of 3 days, a decrease of 63% (8 days). Capital expenditures in the first quarter were $1.767 billion, up 31% year-over-year, analysts expected $1.66 billion, and spending was $1.81 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, up 57% year-over-year.
In terms of capital reserves, Tesla's free cash flow in the first quarter was $2.228 billion, an increase of 660% year-on-year, down 19.7% from the fourth quarter of last year, and analysts expected $671.8 million, an increase of 49% year-on-year to $2.775 billion in the fourth quarter of last year.
On the earnings call, Tesla Chief Financial Officer Zach Kirkhorn said the first quarter was challenging, but still a successful one for Tesla. Tesla CEO Musk said that Tesla has a reason to achieve a 60% shipment growth rate this year, and is still confident (in recent years) to maintain an average annual shipment growth of 50%.
As for the Berlin and Texas plants, Musk said the current capacity climb is growing exponentially and expects to achieve higher production next year.
(Source: Tesla official website)
In May 2021, according to MarketWatch, a Dow Jones-owned news site, German automotive magazine Automobile Woche said that the official commissioning date of Tesla's gigafactory project in Berlin, Germany, will be postponed for 6 months until the end of January 2022. One of the reasons for the delay was the lack of final construction permits at the plant.
A recent report by Automobile Woche states that Tesla aims to increase production to 1,000 vehicles per week by the end of this month. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas expects Tesla to deliver 1.46 million vehicles in fiscal 2022, up 56 percent from 2021.
However, Tesla also issued an early warning in the earnings report that production mainly faces supply chain constraints: "Due to the supply chain as a major constraint, our factory has been operating at a level below planned capacity for many quarters, and this situation will continue in mid-2022." ”
Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner noted that given the logistics problems at the Shanghai port, the cars produced at the Shanghai plant in April may be more used to fulfill domestic orders. Rosner said chip shortages still pose a short-term risk to production, but Tesla has proven its supply chain management capabilities to outperform its peers, which will also be reflected in the first quarter production figures.
Although it has encountered unfavorable factors such as price increases and the epidemic, thanks to the good development opportunities in the Chinese market, Tesla's sales performance in China is also "remarkable".
According to the "March 2022 New Energy Vehicle Market Briefing" released by the China Institute of Automobile Industry Economic and Technical Information, since the beginning of this year, new energy passenger vehicles have continued to continue the momentum of rapid growth. In March, new energy passenger car sales were 461,000 units, up 117.49% year-on-year, much higher than the average growth rate of passenger cars. From January to March, the cumulative sales of new energy passenger cars were 1.2 million units, an increase of more than 145%. In March this year, the penetration rate of new energy passenger cars was 24.72%, a record high. From January to March, the cumulative penetration rate of new energy passenger cars exceeded 21%, the highest in the calendar year.
According to data released by the China Institute of Automobile Industry Economic and Technical Information, Tesla (Shanghai) sales in March this year were 65,800 units, an increase of 85.4% in March, and cumulative sales of 182,200 vehicles in January-March, a cumulative increase of 126.8% from January to March.
It is worth mentioning that Musk's long-term sales target for Tesla is to achieve an annual production of 20 million vehicles by the end of this century.
Tesla also revealed the development status of businesses such as autonomous driving and robot taxis. Tesla said it will continue to develop a beta version of the fully autonomous driving software, with seven software upgrades planned this year. The beta version of the fully autonomous driving software has been released to some Canadian customers, and according to the plan, the beta version of the fully autonomous driving software will be released to all U.S. users this year.
(Source: Tesla earnings report)
Tesla said it is working hard to develop RoboTaxi, planning to hold an event on Robo Taxi in 2023 and aiming to achieve mass production in 2024.
Before Tesla's latest results were announced, Credit Suisse raised its price target from $1,025 to $1,125 and maintained the stock's "outperform" rating, while Bank of America maintained Tesla's $1,100 price target.
In the U.S. stock market on Wednesday, Local Time, Tesla had oscillated downward under the influence of the general decline in technology stocks, closing down 4.96% and closing at $977.20. As of press time, Tesla's after-hours stock price rose $54.40, or 5.57%, to close at $1,031.60.