Tesla said Wednesday it posted a second consecutive quarter of profit for the first time in company history, but saw a dip in profit from the previous quarter.
Tesla reported earnings of 78 cents a share for the fourth quarter, which rose to $1.93 a share after adjustments, on revenue of $7.23 billion. Wall Street was expecting revenue of about $7.014 billion for the quarter and a gain of about $2.08 per share.
Tesla Fourth Quarter & Full Year 2018 Update
- Q4 operating income stable compared to Q3 at $414M, operating margin of 5.7%
- Operating cash flow less capex improved from Q3 to $910M in Q4
- Cash and cash equivalents of $3.7B at Q4-end, increased by $718M in Q4Q4 GAAP net income of $139M impacted by $54M non-cash charge
- Model 3 GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin remained stable at >20% in Q4
The profit dip was expected since Tesla started delivering a less expensive variant of the Model 3 during the last quarter.
On Jan. 18, CEO Elon Musk said in a company blog post that shipments of higher-priced Model 3 variants to Europe and Asia in early 2019 would “hopefully allow us, with great difficulty, effort and some luck, to target a tiny profit” in the current quarter. Musk again warned investors on a call Wednesday that he is “optimistic about being profitable in Q1” but “not by a lot.”
The Tesla Energy energy business had a notable quarter. Energy storage deployments reached 225 MWh, a decrease of 6% sequentially, and up 57% compared to Q4 2017, the company said.
Tesla’s projects 2019 capital expenditure of of about $2.5 billion. Deliveries are expected to grow to “360,000 to 400,000 vehicles” this year, the company said.
See the full earnings report here.