Al Root
Sports car seller and EV maker Lotus Technology reported fourth-quarter results Monday. Numbers look solid but investors have to decide that on their own. There are no analyst estimates yet for the company.
Timing is part of the reason for that. Lotus Technology completed its SPAC merger in late February. Monday was its first quarterly report as a publicly traded company. Fourth-quarter sales came in at $361 million, up 92% year over year. The company shipped $3,749 vehicles, up 110%.
For all of 2023, Lotus generated sales of $679 million on shipments of 6,970 units. Lotus is a luxury car seller. Revenue divided by shipments -- a proxy for price -- came in at almost $100,000 per vehicle. Gross profit margins came in at about 15% for 2023.
There are no analyst estimates to compare that with, but the numbers look OK. Polestar Automotive is expected to generate 2023 sales of about $2.5 billion and gross profit margins of about 2%. (Polestar hasn't reported fourth-quarter financials yet.) Polestar sold almost 55,000 vehicles in 2024. Sales divided by deliveries for Polestar show a per-vehicle price close to $45,000.
The Lotus Technology and Polestar businesses are a little different. Polestar is an all-EV seller. Lotus Tech sells traditional gas-powered Lotus vehicles that are manufactured by a separate but affiliated Lotus company called Lotus Cars. Lotus Technology also sells all-electric vehicles it designs and has manufactured by Chinese auto maker Geely.
Lotus Tech shipped about 4,400 EVs as well as 2,600 sports cars manufactured by Lotus Cars.
"We are pleased with the early progress and promising results achieved in 2023, with increasing deliveries reflecting the strength of our brand and ramping production," said Lotus Tech CEO Qingfeng Feng in a news release. "We look forward to further accelerating our growth in the year ahead, and remain dedicated to creating long-term value for our customers and investors as we continue to execute our Vision80 strategy, building on our luxury brand equity and advanced technology advantages."
Looking ahead, Lotus expects 2024 deliveries of about 26,000 units and gross profit margins to come in between 17% and 19%.
Lotus Technology stock was down about 0.9% in premarket trading at $6.70 a share, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite futures were down about 0.1%.
Management will host a conference call at 8 a.m. Eastern time. Investors and analysts will be eager to hear more about the overall demand for EVs and Lotus' plans to expand sales almost threefold in 2024.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 08, 2024 07:57 ET (11:57 GMT)
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