For the first time in nearly four years, Tesla posted a fall in quarterly deliveries and missed Wall Street estimates. The performance has been described as “ugly” as price cuts failed to stir up demand in a highly competitive market.
The company’s shares fell 5.3% in early trading and were on track to lose about $30 billion in market value.
The electric automaker’s deliveries fell 8.5% from a year ago. The last time it posted a sales fall was in the second quarter of 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the automaker to shut down production.
Although, Tesla’s market capitalization is still well above the combined valuation of Toyota Motors, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.
A Deutsche Bank analyst, Emmanuel Rosner wrote, “The discrepancy between deliveries and production implies ~46k in incremental inventory, which confirms that beyond the known production bottleneck, there may also be a serious demand issue,”
Wall Street on average had expected Tesla to deliver 454,200 vehicles, according to 18 analysts polled by Visible Alpha.
In January, Tesla had warned of “notably lower” sales growth this year as it focuses on the production of its next-generation electric vehicle.
Meanwhile, California-based EV maker Rivian Automotive market estimates for quarterly vehicle production on Tuesday as the firm transitions to new suppliers for fresh materials for its vehicles.
Rivian reported a sequential decline of 3% for first-quarter deliveries, a smaller drop than the company’s previous forecast of 10% to 15% in February.
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