Nio beats Q4 revenue estimates; misses on earnings

Nio Inc. (NYSE: NIO) topped revenue expectations for the fourth quarter of 2019 but losses came in wider-than-expected. The stock crashed 22% in premarket hours on Wednesday.

Total revenue fell 17.1% year-over-year to RMB2,848.3 million ($409.1 million) but beat forecasts of $405 million.

Net loss attributable to NIO’s ordinary shareholders was RMB2,893.8 million ($415.7 million), down 17.7% from the year-ago quarter. Adjusted net loss attributable to NIO’s ordinary shareholders was RMB2,810.7 million ($403.7 million).

Net loss per ADS was RMB2.81 ($0.40) while adjusted net loss per ADS was RMB2.73 ($0.39). Analysts had predicted a loss of $0.33 per ADS.

CFO Wei Feng, stated, “We have put great efforts to optimize our organizations and to improve operation efficiency, which resulted in certain one-off expenses in the fourth quarter. However, we believe that these efforts will significantly reduce our operating expenses and improve our cash flows in 2020 and beyond. We will continue to improve operation efficiency in all business fronts to bring positive changes to the performance of our margins in the future.”

Vehicle deliveries totaled 8,224 units, including 6,824 ES6s and 1,400 ES8s, compared with 7,980 vehicles delivered in the prior-year quarter.

Vehicle sales decreased 20.6% year-over-year to RMB2,683.9 million ($385.5 million) while vehicle margin was negative 6%, compared to 3.7% in the prior-year period. The drop in vehicle sales in the current quarter was due to the sale of a higher proportion of ES6, which has a lower selling price versus the ES8, which accounted for the larger portion of the sales in the year-ago quarter.

For the first quarter of 2020, total revenues are expected to be between RMB1,209.0 million ($173.7 million) and RMB1,273.2 million ($182.9 million), reflecting a decrease of approx. 21.9% to 25.9% from the prior-year period. Vehicle deliveries are expected to be down approx. 9.8% to 14.8% to a range of between 3,400 and 3,600 vehicles versus last year.