Nio reported second-quarter revenue of 32.14 billion yuan ($4.74 billion) on Tuesday, missing the bottom of its own guidance range by 2.0%, while holding vehicle margin at 18.5% and posting a third consecutive quarter of adjusted operating profit.
Revenue rose 69.1% from a year earlier and 25.9% from the first quarter, against guidance issued in May of 32.78 billion to 34.44 billion yuan.
The shortfall follows a delivery miss in the same quarter, when the company handed over 107,658 vehicles against a range of 110,000 to 115,000.
Both halves of the guidance were therefore missed, after Nio beat its first-quarter delivery range and cleared its fourth-quarter 2025 revenue ceiling.
Shares in the company fell as much as 11.3% in Hong Kong on Tuesday, before the results were published, after August deliveries of 35,836 vehicles showed a second consecutive sequential decline.
The July figures had already broken a run of sequential gains.
Immediately after the second quarter results were published, Nio’s US-listed shares were trading 5.20% lower at $4.01 during Tuesday’s pre-market session.
The Margin Held
Vehicle margin was 18.5%, against 10.3% a year earlier and 18.8% in the first quarter, a decline of 30 basis points sequentially and a gain of 820 year on year.
That is above the 17% to 18% full-year range the company has guided to, and above the 14.6% it recorded for 2025 as a whole.
Gross margin was 18.4%, against 10.0% a year earlier and 19.0% in the first quarter, down 60 basis points sequentially.
Nio attributes the year-on-year improvement to a more favourable product mix and describes the vehicle margin as relatively stable against the first quarter.
Gross profit was 5.91 billion yuan, up 211.3% year on year and 21.6% sequentially.
The margin held despite the cost pressure the company has been flagging in public since January.
Chief financial officer Stanley Yu Qu told the first-quarter call in May that memory chips, lithium carbonate, NCM battery materials, copper and aluminium would add more than 10,000 yuan a vehicle from the second quarter onward, and the shares swung from sharp gains to losses on the warning.
Founder and chief executive William Li said at an ES9 media session on May 28 that nickel, cobalt and lithium carbonate had already added more than 10,000 yuan a vehicle, and that carmakers have little bargaining power against commodity and memory markets.
By July 10, at the launch of the five-seat ES8, Li put that model’s per-vehicle cost increase at nearly 20,000 yuan, about 4.9% of its 406,800-yuan entry price, and said the price would need to rise 30,000 yuan to offset it fully.
He said Nio was hedging with supply-chain partners, holding prices, and that the ES8 still had gross margin room.
Qu said on Tuesday that the company maintained healthy gross and vehicle margins despite rising cost pressures, supported by sales of higher-margin models and continued work on the cost structure.
Where the Mix Came From
Vehicle sales revenue was 29.06 billion yuan, up 80.1% year on year, a faster rise than the 49.4% growth in deliveries.
That gap is the mix effect. Revenue per vehicle sold reached about 269,900 yuan in the quarter, against roughly 223,900 a year earlier, a rise of 20.5%.
Li said all three brands grew both volume and average transaction price in the quarter.
He said the Nio brand ranked first in China’s passenger vehicle market above 350,000 yuan in the second quarter, that the ES9 ranked first among passenger vehicles above 500,000 yuan in both June and July, and that the ES8 reached its 140,000th delivery in 335 days while leading both the 400,000-yuan segment and the large SUV segment.
He said Onvo had become the sales leader in China’s 200,000-to-300,000-yuan large SUV segment on the strength of the L90 and L80, and that Firefly had led market share in China’s high-end small-car segment for 15 consecutive months.
The claim on Onvo transaction prices sits against Li’s own remarks in June, when he told the Economic Observer that supply-chain prices had risen too much and that the refreshed L60 still had gross margin but that it was dire.
He put the all-in cost increase for a single Onvo vehicle at about 15,000 yuan once taxes and related charges were counted, in the same period the brand cut the L60’s entry price to 192,800 yuan from 206,900.
Nio does not disclose margin by brand.
Profitability
Adjusted profit from operations was 206.9 million yuan, against 66.8 million in the first quarter and an adjusted operating loss of 4.04 billion a year earlier.
That is a third consecutive positive quarter on the measure, after 1.25 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Adjusted net profit was 26.1 million yuan, down 40.0% from 43.5 million in the first quarter.
On a reported basis the picture is different. Loss from operations widened to 347.2 million yuan from 308.8 million in the first quarter, and net loss widened to 528.0 million from 332.1 million, a sequential increase of 59.0%.
Net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders was 721.6 million yuan, against 496.0 million in the first quarter.
Basic and diluted net loss per share and per American depositary share was 0.29 yuan, against 0.20 yuan in the first quarter and 2.31 yuan a year earlier. On the adjusted measure it was a profit of 0.01 yuan.
Li told employees at a company-wide meeting on February 9 that annual non-GAAP profitability must be met, calling it something not easily achieved and not to be taken for granted.
Qu said on Tuesday that the company is confident of achieving its full-year operating objectives, a formulation that does not repeat the delivery target.
Costs
Research and development was 2.14 billion yuan, down 28.7% year on year and up 13.8% sequentially, which keeps it inside the 2 billion to 2.5 billion quarterly range the company has guided to.
Nio attributes the annual decline to lower personnel costs following organisational optimisation and to development work being at a different stage.
Selling, general and administrative expenses were 4.42 billion yuan, up 11.6% year on year and 26.5% sequentially, which the company attributes to marketing around new product launches.
At 13.8% of revenue, that is well above the roughly 10% the company has said it targets, and the adjusted figure of 4.04 billion is 12.6%.
Cash, restricted cash, short-term investments and long-term time deposits stood at 56.7 billion yuan ($8.4 billion) at the end of June, against 48.2 billion three months earlier and 27.2 billion a year ago.
The company said it generated positive operating cash flow in the quarter and recorded net current assets at the period end.
The Guidance
Nio expects third-quarter deliveries of 108,000 to 111,000 vehicles, growth of 24.0% to 27.5% on the same quarter of 2025, and revenue of 33.29 billion to 34.05 billion yuan, up 52.7% to 56.2%.
Against the second quarter’s actual 107,658 deliveries, that range implies sequential growth of 0.3% to 3.1%.
The company needed a record pace across the final five months to reach the 40% to 50% annual growth Li reaffirmed at the China Auto Chongqing Summit in June, which against 326,028 deliveries in 2025 implies roughly 456,000 to 489,000 vehicles.
With 191,123 delivered in the first half and a third quarter guided to 108,000 at the low end, the fourth quarter would have to produce about 156,900 vehicles to reach even the bottom of that range.
That is 25.7% above the 124,807 of the fourth quarter of 2025, the best quarter the company has recorded, and would require an average of about 52,300 a month against a record month of 48,135.
