Chinese language luxurious electrical automobile maker Nio stock (NYSE:NIO) reported deliveries of 13,863 automobiles in February. Whereas this represents a 62% enhance from the year-ago interval, it marks a roughly 5% drop in comparison with January. Compared, Li Auto (NASDAQ:LI), the most important of the rising EV gamers in China, delivered 26,263 automobiles for February, a rise of just about 30% year-over-year, whereas Xpeng (NYSE:XPEV) bought 30,453 automobiles in February, up over 6.5x from 4,545 in the identical month final 12 months. The primary couple of months of the 12 months are sometimes fairly sluggish for the Chinese language automotive market on account of the Chinese language New Yr competition, which happens someday between late January and mid-February. Contemplating this, a greater strategy to do year-over-year comps is so as to add January and February deliveries and examine them with the year-ago interval. On this case, Nio bought a complete of 27,055 automobiles for January and February mixed, up about 49% from 18,187 models within the year-ago interval.
Nio’s flagship model delivered 9,143 automobiles in February, up 12.4% from 8,132 models in the identical month final 12 months and up 15% % month-over-month. The Onvo subbrand, which was launched towards the second half of final 12 months, accounted for a lot of the year-over-year progress. Nevertheless, deliveries declined in comparison with January to 4,049 automobiles. Nio’s technique with Onvo has been centered round addressing bigger segments of the market and catering to extra area of interest wants. The model’s first automobile, the Onvo L60 – seen as a Tesla Mannequin Y rival – is priced between RMB 200,000 ($28,000) and RMB 300,000 ($42,000). The slowdown in Onvo gross sales is noteworthy, as provide is unlikely to be a constraint for the L60, with Nio indicating late final 12 months that it deliberate to double manufacturing from 10,000 models in December to twenty,000 by March 2025. That mentioned, issues might decide up within the coming months. Onvo’s new L90, a big SUV with three rows of seating, is more likely to be unveiled in Q2 and go on sale someday in Q3 2025. Late final 12 months, Nio additionally launched one other model, Firefly, which can compete within the high-end compact automobile market, taking up the likes of BMW’s Mini and the Mercedes Good collection of automobiles in China. The corporate mentioned that pre-sales for the brand new Firefly automobile have been open, with costs beginning at 148,800 yuan (roughly $20,500). Whereas luxurious compact EVs stay a distinct segment in China, there’s a large marketplace for small EVs, particularly in cities and extra congested areas. This might permit Nio to broaden because the market matures. Furthermore, Firefly might additionally assist Nio higher compete in Europe, the place compact automobiles dominate the automotive market.
Whereas NIO inventory has seen lackluster progress over current years, the Trefis Excessive High quality Portfolio, with a group of 30 shares, has supplied higher returns with much less threat versus the benchmark S&P 500 index over the past four-year interval; it’s been much less of a roller-coaster trip as evident in HQ Portfolio efficiency metrics. Given the present unsure macroeconomic setting round charge cuts and a number of wars, might NIO face an identical scenario because it did the previous couple of years and underperform the S&P over the following 12 months – or will it see a restoration?
Nio’s valuation is fairly enticing. The inventory trades at about $4.50 per share, or roughly 0.7x consensus 2025 revenues, which is low contemplating that revenues are projected to develop by over 40% in 2025 per consensus estimates. Compared, Tesla trades at about 9x revenues, though revenues are more likely to develop by nearly 15% per consensus estimates. See our evaluation of Nio, Xpeng & Li Auto: How Do Chinese language EV Shares Examine? for an in depth take a look at how Nio inventory compares with its rivals Li and Xpeng.
| Returns | Mar 2025 MTD [1] |
2025 YTD [1] |
2017-25 Complete [2] |
| NIO Return | 0% | 6% | -27% |
| S&P 500 Return | 0% | 0% | 162% |
| Trefis Strengthened Worth Portfolio | 0% | -3% | 666% |
[1] Returns as of three/3/2025
[2] Cumulative whole returns for the reason that finish of 2016
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the writer and don’t essentially mirror these of Nasdaq, Inc.
