Tesla Revenue Jumps 74%, Posts Record Net Income in Q1
Tesla posts record net income of $438mn in the first quarter. The EV maker had sold $272mn, or 10%, of its bitcoin stack.
*Sage FX would like to state that traders should research extensively before following any information given hereby. Any assumptions made in this article are provided solely for entertainment purposes and not for traders to guide or alter their positions. Please read our Terms & Conditions and Risk Disclosure for more information.
Principal Points
- Tesla posts record net income of $438mn in the first quarter
- The EV maker had sold $272mn, or 10%, of its bitcoin stack
Tesla got off to a strong start of the year. The electric vehicle pioneer reported a record net income of $438mn in the first quarter while revenue surged 74% from a year ago to $10.39bn, or 93 cents a share. Both earnings per share and revenue beat analyst estimates. Consensus on earnings stood at 79 cents a share, and the expected revenue was $10.29bn.
The first-quarter earnings release states the company reported $518mn in revenue from sales of regulatory credits from January through March. The EV maker registered a total of 184,877 car deliveries for the first quarter and produced 180,338. All of the produced vehicles were Model 3 and Model Y crossover and not a single car of the higher-end Model S or Model X for the period ended March. The company delivered 2,020 older Model S sedans and Model X SUVs.
On this note, Elon Musk stated, during the earnings call with shareholders and reporters, the new version of the Model S sedan will be rolled out as soon as early May this year, while Model X deliveries will begin in July. The carmaker aims to reach a production target of 2,000 Model S and X vehicles per week later in the year. The company is looking to raise its annual electric-vehicle deliveries by 50% compared with last year’s deliveries of nearly 500,000 cars.
Tesla Emphasizes Commitment to Digital Assets
“We’ve seen a real shift in customer perception of electric vehicles, and our demand is the best we’ve ever seen,” Tesla chief Elon Musk said during the call. He went on to mention that the past quarter “had some of the most difficult supply chain challenges that we’ve ever experienced.” Those challenges, he noted, included halted production in China, computer chips issues, and Covid-19 quarantine restrictions that prevented key engineers from traveling.
“We were able to navigate through global chip-supply shortage issues in part by pivoting extremely quickly to new microcontrollers,” the EV maker said in a note to investors, emphasizing that it is also working on new software. In addition, Tesla confirmed it had lowered the cost of car production.
Tesla also mentions its recent bitcoin purchase worth $1.5bn in early February. Somewhere between mid-February and the end of March, Tesla had sold $272 million worth of “digital assets”, presumably bitcoin. The update in the statement of cash flows points that the sales of bitcoin made a $101mn “positive impact” on the company’s profitability in the first quarter.
“We do believe long term in the value of bitcoin,” CFO Zachary Kirkhorn said during the earnings call. “We intend to hold what we have long term and continue to accumulate bitcoin from transactions from our customers as they purchase vehicles,” he also commented.
Shares of Tesla were down around 2.5% in after-hours trading. The company’s valuation has risen more than 800% last year. It is up roughly 4.5% so far in 2021. On Monday, during the regular trading session, Tesla stock advanced 1.2% lifted by increased investors’ expectations over the earnings release.