Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Nio Group reported on Friday its fourth-quarter earnings results posting a revenue jump of 15.2% while net losses extended to 7.11 billion yuan, equivalent to $0.98 billion.
Vehicle margin increased year on year to 13.1% (from 11.9%) in the fourth quarter, flat quarter over quarter.
In the last quarter of 2o24, vehicle deliveries of the Shanghai-based Group stood at 72,689 units, a year on year increase of 45.2%. A majority of those deliveries were Nio brand vehicles as the company started deliveries of its first sub-brand Onvo on September 28.
Automotive revenue surged to 17.47 billion yuan, up from 16.698 billion yuan in the third quarter of the year.
For the full year, the EV maker delivered 221,970 vehicles, increasing by 38.7% year-over-year. Nio’s founder and CEO William Li said late last year he was “very confident” the Group would double sales in 2024 hinting they can surpass 440,000 units.
For the first quarter of this year, Nio said it expects to deliver “between 41,000 and 43,000 vehicles” which would make a year on year increase of 36.4% — 43.1%.
Nio shares plunged 8.90% on Thursday closing at $4.71. As of the time of writing, and immediately after the earnings report, the stock is trading 6% lower.
In a statement, Li said the Nio brand “maintained its position as the leader in China’s BEV market for vehicles priced over RMB300,000, capturing a 40% market share” in 2024.
Commenting on the sub-brand, the chief executive added that “the market share of the Onvo L60 have been steadily increasing since its launch, securing a top-three position in China’s BEV SUV market priced between RMB200,000 and 300,000.”
“This year marks the beginning of a new product cycle for our three brands. Nio brand will further solidify its premium positioning by introducing more technology and experience-driven products. Ovo brand, targeting the mainstream mass market, will concentrate on increasing its sales volume and enriching its product portfolio.
Regarding the upcoming sub-brand Firefly, Li confirmed the debut model will “officially launched and begin deliveries in April, serving as a key driver for our future international expansion.”
“Additionally, we are continuously advancing our assisted and intelligent driving capabilities and have made breakthroughs in our NIO WorldModel architecture, which will be gradually rolled out to cover all driving scenarios,” he added.
Portfolio Expansion
Starting from April and throughout the year’s end, the Group will start delivering several new models and refreshed versions across the three brands Nio, Onvo and Firefly.
Nio said this week that deliveries of its luxurious sedan ET9 will start on March 29 across China. The four-seater luxury sedan, starts at 660,000 yuan ($91,000) under Nio’s Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) program, which allows buyers to lease the battery separately.
The ET9, Nio’s most expensive sedan, and Firefly, a compact car (and the cheapest model ever) under its upcoming third brand, will start deliveries in April. The sub-brand Onvo will launch two new SUVs later this year.
Earlier this week, the company announced the extension of the partnership with the battery giant CATL into the battery swap business. CATL is also investing up to 2.5 billion yuan ($346 million) in Nio Power, the charging and battery swap unit of the EV maker.
The company provided earlier this Thursday the 69 millionth battery swap in China as it continues to expand its charging and battery swapping network. As of now, the EV maker has 3,182 stations across the country.
