China’s premium electric vehicle manufacturer Nio (NYSE: NIO) said it delivered 3,989 ES8 electric SUVs in the first quarter, surpassing its own guidance of 3,500 to 3,800 vehicles. As of March 31, 2019, the company has delivered a total of 15,337 vehicles.
Nio, which is often likened to Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), said deliveries in March touched 1,373 vehicles in March, which was approximately a 70% improvement from the prior sequential month. In February, the company delivered on 811 vehicles, primarily due to the Chinese New Year holiday period.
A total of 1,805 ES8s were delivered in January 2019.
Apart from the 7-seater ES8, the company offers 5-seater premium electric SUV ES6, which was launched in December last year.
Nio shares were trading up 3.3% during pre-market trading on Wednesday. Since the beginning of this year, the stock is down almost 13%. The stock had declined almost 10% on March 5 after the company warned of a worse-than-expected slowdown in deliveries in the first quarter.
On the other hand, Nio reported a narrower net loss in the fourth quarter when a sharp increase in deliveries drove up its revenues.
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During the fourth quarter, deliveries of ES8 more-than-doubled to 7,980 units from 3,268 units in the third quarter. A total of 8,069 vehicles were manufactured in Q4.
Nio has emerged as a top electric vehicle maker in the region in a very short span of time, to the extent that it started giving competition to its better-established US counterparts. While the company is improving its bottom-line performance consistently, it is unlikely to achieve profitability in the near term due to the continuing drag on margins from the high expenses.