Xpeng Shares Crash on Widening Losses Despite Revenue Rebound

BEIJING, August 18 (TiPost)— The American depositary receipts (ADRs) of Xpeng Inc. crashed as much as 9.2% in the morning trading after Tesla’s Chinese competitor released worse-than-expected quarterly earnings. ADRs of the electric vehicle (EV) maker settled about 4.3% lower to US$14.98, the lowest since July 21, underperforming the market on Friday.

Credit：Visual China

Xpeng posted total revenue of RMB5.06 billion (US$700 million) for the quarter ended June 30, slightly ahead of analysts’ estimated RMB4.91 billion. The revenue represented a year-over-year (YoY) decline of 31.9%, but rallied 26% from the previous quarter, the first quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) increase in the past three quarters.

The bottom line turned worse in the June quarter. Excluding share-based compensation expenses, non-GAAP net loss widened 8.5% YoY to RMB2.67 billion, the biggest quarterly loss since the company went public in August 2020. The net loss without adjustment widened 3.7% YoY to RMB2.80 billion, while the Wall Street expected loss to be narrowed 21.1% YoY to RMB2.13 billion.

Gross Margin in the second quarter was negative 3.9%, also missing analysts’ expectation of 4.79%, compared with 10.9% for the same period of 2022 and 1.7% for the first quarter of 2023. Vehicle margin, which is gross profit or loss of vehicle sales as a percentage of vehicle sales revenue, was negative 8.6% that quarter, compared with 9.1% for the same period a year earlier. Margin of Xpeng’s core business margin showcased deeper weakness after it record negative 2.5% of vehicle margin in the first quarter.

Xpeng said the yearly drop in revenue in the second quarter was mainly due to lower vehicle deliveries and discontinuation of new energy vehicle (NEV) subsidy. The YoY and QoQ decreases in vehicle margin partly resulted from the inventory write-downs and losses on inventory purchase commitments related to the electric crossover G3i, which had a negative impact of 4.5 percentage points on vehicle margin that quarter. Increased sales promotions and the expiry of new energy vehicle subsidies mentioned above also hit the margin.

Xpeng delivered 23,205 vehicles in the June quarter with a 32.6% YoY decrease, but the delivery increased 27.3% from the first three months of the year. The EV company said earlier this month it shipped 11,008 EVs in July, topping 10,000 units the first time this year. The recent delivery was roughly flat YoY, suggesting a recovery from previous month that posted a YoY 43% decrease. Moreover,its delivery rose 28% MoM in July, a positive MoM growth for the sixth straight month, compared with growth of 17% the prior month.

Xpeng is set to gain more momentum from its blockbuster model G6, its first strategic model built on SEPA 2.0 (Smart Electric Platform Architecture), the latest technology architecture launched in April . G6 commenced mass deliveries across 110 cities nationwide in July after its market launch in late June. G6 deliveries reached more than 3,900 units since the delivery started in July 15, accounting for one third of the total monthly delivery.

G6 has quickly become one of the best-selling models following its official launch in June, turbocharging our sales growth momentum, Xpeng Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng commented at a financial filling on Friday. “I believe the success of the G6 is just the beginning and moving forward, a wider range of SEPA2.0- enabled models will be brought to our customers,” He said.

Xpeng co-president Hongdi Brain Gu attributed the sequential growth for six months in a row to new products and more efficient sales channels. “With the G6 and other new products accelerating sales growth, we expect gross margin to gradually recover while operating efficiency continues to improve and free cash flow to substantially improve,” Gu said.

Looking forward the current quarter, Xpeng expected delivery would increase to between 39,000 and 41,000 units, up about 31.9% to 38.7% YoY, and revenue to be between RMB8.5 billion to RMB9.0 billion, representing a YoY increase range between approximately 24.6% and 31.9%.

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