Rising EV star turns fortunes around

Staff reporter and Bloomberg

China's electric vehicle maker Li Auto (2015) swung to a net profit of 11.8 billion yuan (HK$12.8 billion) last year from a net loss of 2 billion yuan a year ago, and expects to deliver at most 103,000 units this quarter, 96 percent more than a year ago.

The emerging star of the industry estimates the total revenues in the first three-month period of the year will jump up to 32.19 billion yuan, which will represent a 71 percent rise from a year ago.

The final quarter's figures bring revenue for the full-year to 123.9 billion yuan, beating estimates. It makes Li the first of the three major Chinese EV upstarts, ahead of XPeng (9868) and Nio (9866), to post an annual profit as sales surged 182 percent to 376,000 vehicles.

For the three months ended December 31, Li posted revenue of 41.7 billion yuan, according to Monday's exchange filing, up 136 percent year-on-year versus the 39.8 billion yuan the market was looking for. Vehicle deliveries for the period were a record 131,805 units.

But Li Auto's forecasts for the first quarter are weaker than analysts' expectations of a total revenue of 36.37 billion yuan and a delivery of 116,604 units.

Despite Li's better-than-expected performance over the past year, it is still too early to say which automakers will emerge as long-term winners in China's hyper-competitive market.

BYD (1211) debuted its most expensive car on Sunday, a 1.68 million yuan high-performance fully-electric supercar pitted against luxury gas-guzzling options offered by rivals such as Ferrari NV and Lamborghini.

In other news, Brilliance China Automotive's (1114) controlling shareholder Liaoning Xinrui will trim its stake by 0.44 percent, or 22 million shares, in the Chinese joint venture of BMV in the coming three months, the company revealed in a statement.