but today, apparantly there is a reason to release yesterday's news..
.
Barron's ·
2024/04/10 18:31 GMT+02:00
Al Root
Tesla's start to April in China has been weak and that isn't good news for weary Tesla investors.
In March, the electric vehicle giant sold an about 62,000 vehicles in China. Sales in the first week of the new month, however, amounted to just 1,880 units, down 89% week over week and down 86% month over month, according to industry data tracked by Citi analyst Jeff Chung.
Tesla's "April sales may drop 60% month over month," added the analyst in a Tuesday evening report.
There are a few reasons for the weak number. The Beijing Auto Show is happening in late April so buyers could be waiting. In addition, buyers are also hoping for a new EV subsidy, potentially launched this quarter. The final week of March, of course, was the final week of a quarter when many car companies put extra emphasis on ramping sales to hit numbers.
Still, the early April decline will stir investor anxiety. Tesla also underperformed other auto makers. For the first week of April, overall Chinese sales of battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids dropped 17% month over month.
That isn't the start to the new quarter investors were hoping for.
For the first quarter of 2024, Tesla sold about 132,000 vehicles in China, down about 4% year over year. Chinese sales accounted for roughly one-third of the company's 387,000 total in the quarter.
The 387,000 figure was a big disappointment, missing Wall Street's lowest estimates by some 20,000 vehicles. First-quarter sales dropped almost 9% year over year. It was only Tesla's second year-over-year decline and the first since 2020 during the global pandemic.
Tesla will need Chinese sales to rebound in the coming weeks if it hopes to hit Wall Street's consensus call for second-quarter deliveries of 458,000 units, according to FactSet.
That number would be down about 2% from the 466,000 units delivered in the second quarter of 2023.
Growth will be a struggle for Tesla in 2024. It's a big reason Tesla stock has been weak. Coming into Thursday trading, shares were down about 31% year to date.
Tesla stock dropped 2.9% Wednesday, closing at $171.76, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell 1% and 0.8%, respectively. Hotter-than-expected inflation data pressured most stocks.
Write to Al Root at
[email protected]
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 10, 2024 16:31 ET (20:31 GMT)
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