Chinese electric car maker Xpeng delivered 120,757 vehicles last year, up 23 percent from 2021. But with sales rising slightly, the net loss nearly doubled to 9.14 billion yuan, the equivalent of 1.25 billion euros.
Xpeng has now presented 2022 financials as part of its annual report. Accordingly, sales reached 26.86 billion yuan (about 3.67 billion euros), an increase of 28 percent over the previous year. However, the company’s net loss climbed from 4.86 billion yuan to the aforementioned 9.14 billion yuan, or $1.5 billion. Xpeng puts full-year gross margin at 11.5 percent, down one percentage point from 2021.
That the manufacturer experienced a weak second half of the year was already evident from the data for the 3rd quarter of 2022. The forecast for the fourth quarter was very low at the time: With 22,204 confirmed deliveries, Xpeng is slightly above the fear that in the 4th quarter able to sell only 20,000 to 21,000 vehicles. The decline is still huge – minus 47 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. Revenue (5.14 billion yuan) decreased by 40 percent accordingly. Gross margin fell 3.3 percent in the fourth quarter.
“We have comprehensively reviewed our strategy and taken decisive steps to carry out our organizational restructuring and strengthen our capabilities where necessary,” He Xiaopeng, the company’s chairman and CEO, said in the annual report. “From 2023 to 2027, the industry will transition from a period of rapid EV penetration to an era of accelerated smart disruption, and we are confident that we will continue to expand our leadership in smart EV technologies.”
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In the first quarter of 2023, however, the “restructuring” will not yet take effect. Car sales were only 5,218 in January and 6,010 in February. Without a trend reversal in March, the quarterly result will fall below the Q4/2022 result shown above. A glimmer of hope is the revised P7i electric sedan as a successor to the P7, which Xpeng unveiled this week and whose deliveries are due to begin in China this month.
Xpeng has high hopes for the facelift, as the previous model was Xpeng’s main source of sales for a long time. In 2022, 59,066 P7s were sold, accounting for 49 percent of Xpeng’s annual sales. The manufacturer itself estimates that the first quarter of 2023 will end with the sale of 18,000 to 19,000 vehicles, which would correspond to the March result of 6,800 to 7,800 deliveries. Xpeng sees first-quarter revenue fall to 4.0 billion to 4.2 billion yuan. Both key values ​​should thus fall by roughly 45 percent compared to the same period last year.
ir.xiaopeng.com
Source: Electrive
