Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
HSBC analyst Yuqian Ding downgraded Nio’s rating to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ and cut the price target by 32% to $4.50 from $7.20, just days after the Chinese EV maker reported record monthly and quarterly vehicle deliveries.
The latest downgrade is part of a pattern of downward revisions by HSBC over the last four years as Nio’s stock price steadily falls from its all time high of $66.99. Based on Monday’s closing price, the new price target implies a downside of 4.50%.
Last October, Yuqian Ding reduced Nio’s price target by $0.70 to $7.20 but expressed confidence in the company’s volume growth, citing an “accelerating product cycle” driven by the launch of Onvo’s first model, whose deliveries had already begun on September 28.
In February 2021, when the stock was trading around $47, Yuqian Ding raised the price target from $44.70 to $54, stating in a research note that “clearly EV adoption is happening faster than we thought.”
By July 2021, with the stock trading at $44, Ding upgraded Nio’s rating from ‘Hold’ to ‘Buy’ with a price target of $69, signaling a 56.8% upside potential. However, after the stock dropped to $36 in less than three months, HSBC slashed the price target to $47.
In November 2021, HSBC briefly raised the price target by $6 to $53.00. The sentiment shifted in March 2023, when Ding reduced the price target from $10.20 to $7.90 while maintaining a ‘Buy’ rating. By October 2024, as Nio’s struggles persisted, the target was lowered further to $7.20, though the ‘Buy’ rating was maintained.
The October downgrade came as HSBC reduced its net profit forecasts for 2024, 2025, and 2026 by 26% to 39%, citing lower gross margins due to a diluted product mix from the cheaper brands Onvo and Firefly.
As of time of writing, the analyst has not yet answered to EV‘s request for the full research note.
In 2024, Nio’s sales increased by 38.7% to 221,970 units. Starting in April 2025, Nio’s third brand, Firefly, is planned to begin deliveries in China, with the company projecting 50,000 deliveries for the year. Across its three brands, the company expects to deliver more than 440,000 vehicles this year—doubling from 2024.
As reported earlier this Tuesday, Nio registered 3,000 vehicles between December 30 and January 5 in China, down 53% week over week.
Li Auto data showed on Tuesday that the second brand of the Shanghai-headquartered EV maker registered 2,300 vehicles in the same period taking the group’s total registrations to 5,300 units, down from 10,700 recorded between December 23 and 29.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
