Tesla Inc. reported Wednesday afternoon second-quarter earnings above Wall Street projections, defying expectations that COVID-19-related closures in China would hurt its results, thanks to rising vehicle prices and selling most of your Bitcoin.
The quarter was a challenge, but “we have the potential to break the record in the second half of the year,” except for force majeure and other problems beyond the control of the electric vehicle manufacturer, CEO Elon Musk said in a statement. call after results. “It’s been a supply chain hell for several years.”
Tesla TSLA, + 0.80% said it earned $ 2.3 billion, or $ 1.95 per share, in the second quarter, compared to $ 1.1 billion, or $ 1.02 per share, in the second quarter of 2021. Adjusted for one-time items, the company earned $ 2.27. a fee.
Sales rose 42 percent to $ 16.9 billion from $ 12 billion a year ago, thanks to higher sales, higher average selling prices and growth in other parts of the business, Tesla said. .
Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected Tesla to report adjusted earnings of $ 1.81 per share in sales of $ 16.5 billion.
“From our perspective, this was perhaps Tesla’s most impressive quarter in years given the daunting challenges it faced,” which included supply chain problems, COVID-19 outages in Shanghai, and construction costs. ‘start in Austin and Berlin, CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson told MarketWatch. .
“The orientation that the Fremont and Shanghai factories reached their highest monthly production in history and is focused on the second half of 2022, was more music for the ears of the oxen,” Nelson said.
Tesla said it faced “challenges” with shutdowns and limited production in Shanghai, but ended the quarter “with the highest vehicle production month in our history.”
Headwinds also included higher raw material and logistics costs, including parts acceleration costs, the impact of the stronger dollar and a “bitcoin deterioration” that the company did not detail.
Tesla closed the quarter with $ 18.9 billion in cash and cash equivalents. He said he converted about 75% of his bitcoin to BTCUSD, + 1.57% of purchases in what he called “fiat currency.” Quarterly conversions added $ 936 million in cash to the balance sheet, the company said.
Tesla’s free cash flow was “a little smooth” compared to expectations, “but understandable given the supply chain disruption,” RBC’s Joseph Spak said in a note after the results.
The second quarter “seems to be the short-term nadir with (Tesla) focused on“ a second-half record of 2022, ”Spak said.
Shares rose slightly in out-of-hours trading immediately after the report. The shares closed the usual trading day with an increase of 0.8%.
Among the results, Wall Street was worried that the second quarter would be difficult thanks to ongoing supply chain problems, slower production ramps at Tesla factories in Austin, Texas, and Berlin, Germany, and related closures. with the pandemic set aside by the Tesla factory in Shanghai. .
In a letter to shareholders accompanying the results, Tesla seemed to temper expectations for production ramps in Austin and Berlin.
The pace of production at the two factories will be “influenced by the successful introduction of many new products and manufacturing technologies in new locations and the ongoing challenges related to the supply chain. Factory ramps take time” and these two do not they will be different, Tesla said.
The company said it was “advancing” on the Cybertruck, its electric pickup truck, which will be made in Austin after the Model Y production ramp there. In the call, Musk reiterated that Tesla was on track to get the vehicle off the production line by mid-2023.
Tesla earlier this month reported a quarter-on-quarter drop in deliveries, its sales indicator, which led some analysts to cut their expectations for the electric vehicle manufacturer’s quarter.
Tesla shares have lost 30% this year, compared to losses of about 17% in the S&P 500 SPX index, + 0.59%.