Tesla posts profit of $438 million, share price drops

It appears simply posting a profit is not enough to rocket Tesla’s share price anymore, with the company seeing a nearly 2% fall in share price in after-hours trading on the announcement of their quarterly sales figures.

The company beat expectation by posting earnings of 93 cents per share vs. 79 cents per share expected and increased revenue by 74% to $10.39 billion vs. $10.29 billion expected.

It recorded a quarterly record of $438 million (on a GAAP basis), and helped by $518 million in revenue from sales of regulatory credits and $101 million from sales of bitcoin during the quarter.

A total of 184,800 Model 3 and Model Y cars were sold, setting a record for Tesla. This is despite not selling any Model S or Model X cars, due to ongoing refurbishment.  Telsa is setting a target of 750,000 vehicles sold in 2021.

Tesla says they expect production in China to continue to increase each quarter and to start delivering vehicles from their gigafactory in Germany in Texas in 2021.

Tesla says their average selling price has gone down, but their profit per vehicle actually increased, due to lower cost of production, with the company saying: “Reducing the average cost of the vehicles we produce is essential to our mission.”

Besides cars, revenue for its solar and storage business also nearly doubled, generating $595 million.

via CNBC