Tesla Motors Inc fell in extended trading after the electric-car maker led by Elon Musk missed targets for vehicle deliveries and reported an unexpected loss.
The fourth-quarter loss, excluding certain items, was US$0.13 a share, the company said in a letter to investors posted on its Web site.
Analysts had estimated a profit of US$0.32 a share, on average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Photo: Bloomberg
Tesla delivered a record 9,834 vehicles, missing the average analyst estimate by almost 1,000 and its own goal by 1,345.
The company said that while it met its full-year production target of 35,000 Model S cars, many were not finished until late in the year and could not be delivered to customers last year because of holiday vacations and severe winter weather. About 1,400 deliveries slipped into the first quarter.
“The stock is down because they missed on deliveries, revenue and earnings, but the miss has nothing to do with demand,” said Theo O’Neill, an analyst with Ascendiant Capital Markets. “Blaming customers for taking vacation seems like an odd thing to put in the press release.”
Tesla shares fell 3.6 percent to US$205.19 at 7:29pm in New York on Wednesday. The stock gained 48 percent last year.
Tesla, the youngest and smallest publicly traded US automaker, is seeking to make electric cars for the masses by boosting production with the construction of a battery factory near Reno, Nevada. The company faces some headwinds at home and abroad. In the US, the lowest gas prices in more than five years have made traditional cars more attractive to US drivers. Meanwhile, sales in China have slowed amid consumer perception that home charging is difficult.
“They got off on the wrong foot in China and it’s going to take more time to figure it out,” O’Neill said.
Tesla on Wednesday said that it is working to make Chinese consumers more confident in purchasing a Model S by installing chargers at buyers’ homes before the vehicle is delivered. The automaker is also adding features for the Chinese market, where buyers are often driven.
“We believe our new executive seats and second-row center console will be quite popular with new China customers,” Tesla said in its letter.
Tesla said it expects to deliver 55,000 Model S and Model X vehicles this year and that it will begin shipping the long-awaited Model X in six months.
In November last year, Musk said he anticipated delivering 50,000 Model S cars this year.
The Palo Alto, California-based company said it has received almost 20,000 Model X reservations and entered the year with a backlog of 10,000 Model S orders.
The company said that the strong dollar “has a slightly negative net effect on profitability,” because most of the Model S is built in North America.
“In markets where the local currency has declined significantly versus the US dollar, we recently increased prices by only about half that decline,” Tesla said.
The company said it will be able to assemble 2,000 vehicles a week by the end of this year.
Despite missing estimates on deliveries and profit, which have been anticipated since Musk’s comments about China last month, the report was positive, said Ben Kallo, a San Francisco-based analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co.
“The guidance of 55,000 deliveries this year is in line, and they’re still on track for Model X timing,” he said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”