CHICAGO: Tesla Inc on Sunday posted record quarterly car deliveries, but quarter-on-quarter sales growth was modest despite price cuts as increasing competition and a bleak economic outlook weighed.
Tesla company delivered 422,875 vehicles for the first three months of this year, up 4 percent from the last quarter. This was 36 percent higher than a year ago. In January, Chief Executive Elon Musk said that Tesla could achieve 2 million car deliveries this year, up 52 percent from last year.
Investors have been watching Elon Musk’s gamble that lowering prices would stimulate sales, although they worry about eroding margins.
Tesla slashed prices internationally in January
In January, Tesla slashed prices internationally by as much as 20 percent, unleashing a price war after missing Wall Street delivery estimates for 2022. The basic Model Y, which used to sell for $65,990, now costs $54,990.
“If they would not have done the price cut, it would’ve been ugly. I think it tells you the economy is getting tough,” Gene Munster, managing co-partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said on Sunday.
“They showed an acceleration but did not accelerate to the level that Musk had suggested it would.”
Elon, who has missed his own aspiring sales targets for Tesla company in recent years, said in January that 2023 deliveries could target 2 million cars, absent external disruption, from 1.3 million in 2022.
The first-quarter Tesla deliveries compare with analyst expectations of 430,008 cars, according to Refinitiv data based on seven analysts.
According to estimates compiled by FactSet as of Friday, Wall Street was expecting Tesla company to report deliveries of around 432,000 cars for the quarter, the Wall Street Journal and CNBC said.
Tesla company missed the figure analysts surveyed by Refinitiv and FactSet were expecting. Other estimates show that Tesla company beat Wall Street expectations with its 422,875 cars delivered.
