This morning, NIO officially announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2021, with a number of data reaching new highs.

Deliveries

A total of 20,060 vehicles were delivered in the first quarter of 2021, including 8,088 ES6, 7,456 EC6 and 4,516 ES8.

The delivery exceeds not only records of any other quarter in the history of NIO (15.6% month-on-month growth and 422.7% year-on-year increase), but also the forecast of 20,000 to 20,500 vehicles in the financial statements of 2020Q4.

Moreover, after the entire industry falling into a state of chip shortage, NIO announced on March 26th that it would suspend production for five days and cut its estimated delivery volume to 19,500 vehicles. Still, its deliveries of vehicles hits a record high.

In addition, NIO celebrated its 100,000th production vehicle officially rolling off the line on April 7th this year.

As a comparison, the data of deliveries for the four quarters of last year are released here:

  • 2020Q4, 17,353 vehicles
  • 2020Q3, 12,206 vehicles
  • 2020Q2, 10,331 vehicles
  • 2020Q1, 3,838 vehicles

In the financial report, William LI said, “The overall demand for our products continues to be strong, but the supply chain still faces great challenges due to chip shortage. Given the strong momentum under a volatile macro-environment, we expect to deliver 21,000 to 22,000vehicles in 2021Q2.”

Financial Data

In 2021Q1, vehicle sales revenues were RMB 7,405.8 million, up 20% from the previous quarter and up 489.8% from the same period last year (total revenues were RMB 7,982.3 million, representing an increase of 20.2% from 2020Q4 and an increase of 481.8% from the same period last year).

In 2021Q1, NIO’s gross margin reached 19.5%, and the vehicle margin was 21.2%, both reached new highs. In 2020Q4, the gross margin was 17.2%, and the vehicle margin was 17.2%. (For comparison, Tesla’s gross margin was 21.3%, and the vehicle margin was 26.5% in 2021Q1.)

Net loss of 2021Q1 was RMB 451 million, down 73.3% from the first quarter of 2020, and a 67.5% decrease from the fourth quarter of 2020.

The increase in vehicle margin was mainly attributed to higher take-rate of NIO Pilot and 100 kWh battery package.

Other Data

NIO expects total revenues of 2021Q2 to range from RMB 8,146.1 million to RMB 8,504.5 million, representing an increase of 2.1% to 6.5% from the first quarter of 2021.

Research and development expenses in 2021Q1 were RMB 686.5 million, representing a decrease of 17.2% from the same quarter of 2020 and an increase of 31.4% from the previous quarter.

Selling and management expenses of 2021Q1 were RMB 1,197.2 million, an increase of 41.1% over the same period last year and a decrease of 0.8% from the fourth quarter of 2020.

NIO’s cash reserve has reached RMB 47.5 billion.

Source: NIO