Tesla ends year with a profit for the first time in history, but investors are disappointed
American electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Inc. For the first time in its history, it ended the year with a net profit, and also announced plans to significantly increase production in the coming years, taking into account record deliveries last year.
Tesla plans to increase car production by about 50% per year and is likely to grow faster than this level in the current and next year, said the head of Tesla Elon Musk. Tesla sold about 500 thousand vehicles in 2020.
Musk previously set a 2021 sales target of 840,000 - 1 million vehicles. Wall Street experts expect on average 769 thousand vehicles to be delivered.
According to a Tesla press release, 2020 net income was $ 721 million, up from a net loss of $ 862 million in 2019. The company had annual revenues of $ 31.5 billion, up from $ 24.6 billion a year earlier, and an average forecast of analysts surveyed by FactSet of $ 31.1 billion.
In the fourth quarter, Tesla delivered 180,570 vehicles, which was a quarterly record. But the company fell short of its goal for 2020 - to deliver half a million cars - the company delivered 499,550 cars for the whole year.
The company's shares after the publication of the results fell 5%. The fortune of Tesla CEO Elon Musk fell by $ 3.7 billion - to $ 186.6 billion, according to the Forbes Real-Time rating, which is updated in real time.
Tesla's numbers beat market forecasts for the previous five quarters, and the fact that they fell short of expectations in the fourth quarter disappointed investors. They also reacted negatively to the automaker's lack of a clear sales target for 2021, says CFRA analyst Garett Nelson.
Tesla's capitalization has skyrocketed 643% over the past 12 months and is currently over $ 837 billion. Musk associates the jump in the company's capitalization, in particular, with its developments in the field of self-driving cars.