Tesla's latest quarterly financial report is abnormal, with little detail provided on its future sales outlook and no specific delivery targets specified.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas pointed out that Tesla's car sales growth rate this year is expected to be less than half of last year.
The sales prospects are not optimistic
After the US stock market closed on Wednesday, Tesla, the leader in the electric vehicle industry, released its fourth quarter performance report, with revenue and profits falling short of market expectations.
Tesla has provided almost no details on its outlook for the next year. Although the company stated that sales in 2024 will "significantly decrease" compared to last year, it did not specify the percentage. For a long time, the company has set an average annual growth rate at 50%.
Jonas expects Tesla's delivery growth rate to drop to 15% in 2024, less than half of the 38% growth rate in 2023.
Jonas also wrote in the report that Tesla's performance and subsequent conference calls did not provide any new information to change existing emotions. In fact, if Tesla cannot regain confidence in its growth prospects, the stock price may continue to decline.
As of Wednesday's close, Tesla's stock price fell 0.6% to $207.83, and after the financial report was released, the post market stock price further fell by about 7.7%. Tesla's stock price has reached a low point in over two months, the lowest level since November 13, 2023.
Artificial intelligence is a potential positive
Although Jonas is not optimistic about poor car sales, he still holds an "overweight" rating on Tesla stock, setting a target price of $345 per share.
It can be seen that this analyst is not bearish on the company's stock price. He gave the reason that artificial intelligence will bring growth to the company this year, which is highly likely. Moreover, the company's capital expenditure guidance for the 2024 fiscal year is at least $10 billion, higher than Morgan Stanley's expectation of about $8.5 billion.
During the earnings conference call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that the company may update on artificial intelligence later this year.
However, while keeping the target stock price unchanged, Jonas lowered Tesla's revenue forecast for the 2024 fiscal year to $106 billion due to a decrease in automotive revenue expectations.