Shares of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker XPeng (XPEV -4.75%) were moving higher on Tuesday after the company reported a narrower-than-expected first-quarter loss.
As of 10:30 a.m. ET, XPeng's American depositary shares (ADS) were up about 11.4% from Monday's closing price.
XPeng said last week that it will begin selling two models, including the G9 electric SUV, in France. Image source: XPeng Motors.
A narrower loss than expected
XPeng reported its first-quarter results before the U.S. markets opened on Tuesday, and they were better than expected. The company reported an adjusted loss per share of $0.21 on revenue of $906.9 million; Wall Street had expected a loss per share of $0.27 on revenue of $868.1 million.
XPeng's sales are traditionally lowest in the first quarter of the year, because of the Lunar New Year holidays and because China's incentives for EV buyers tend to "pull forward" sales into the fourth quarter of the preceding year.
With that in mind, XPeng delivered 21,821 vehicles in the first quarter of 2024. While that's down sharply from the 60,158 it delivered in the fourth quarter of 2023, it's up 19.7% from the year-ago quarter -- with the latter being the fairer comparison.
XPeng had about $5.7 billion in cash and equivalents on hand as of March 31, down about 9% from the end of 2023 -- but sufficient to fund operations for a while.
XPeng expects strong sales growth in the second quarter
XPeng's guidance was solid as well. The company expects its second-quarter deliveries to total between 29,000 and 32,000 vehicles. At the lower end, that would be up about 25% from the same period in 2023.
