On the evening of the 25th, Tesla's stock price fell sharply after opening. As of the close on January 25th local time, Tesla's stock price was at $182.63, a decrease of 12.13%, with a market value of $580.57 billion and an overnight evaporation of $80.1 billion (approximately RMB 574.3 billion). This has reduced Tesla CEO Musk's personal wealth by approximately $18 billion, although he remains the wealthiest person in the world.
It is worth noting that on that day, the three major US stock indexes collectively closed higher, with the Dow Jones Index up 0.64%, the Nasdaq up 0.18%, and the S&P 500 Index up 0.53%. By comparison, Tesla's sharp decline is more noticeable.
The direct reason for the 12% drop is that Tesla's financial report released on the 25th did not meet expectations.
According to the financial report, Tesla's revenue in the fourth quarter of last year was $25.17 billion, a year-on-year increase of 3%, lower than the expected $25.87 billion. The total annual revenue was 96.773 billion US dollars, an increase of 19% year-on-year, reaching a historic high. However, compared to the growth rate of over 50% in the previous two years, the revenue growth in 2023 has significantly slowed down. Moreover, although the revenue increased, the operating profit was only $8.891 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 35%; The total gross profit was 17.66 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 15%; The annual gross profit margin was 18.2%, a decrease of 7.35 percentage points from last year - the first decline in Tesla's annual profit in seven years.
Based on the above situation, Wall Street institutions have successively lowered Tesla's target price, among which Goldman Sachs has lowered Tesla's target price from $255 to $220; Wade Bush lowered Tesla's target price from $350 to $315. In addition, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas predicts that Tesla's car sales growth rate in 2024 will drop to 15%, less than half of the 38% growth rate in 2023.
Not only did it fall short of expectations in the past, but the market and Tesla themselves did not have great confidence in the sales for the new year. Tesla stated in its financial report that its sales growth rate in 2024 will be significantly lower than in 2023 as the company is developing next-generation vehicles.
One important factor that put Tesla at a low point is the "price war". In 2023, Tesla was the first to lower prices and was forced to start a series of price reductions. The starting price of the Model 3 was once as low as 229900 yuan. At the beginning of the new year, Tesla once again launched a price reduction, offering a maximum discount of 15500 yuan for the new model 3.
The next generation of low-cost cars that Tesla hopes for will still take some time to mass produce. Musk said he expects Tesla to start producing these cars at factories in Texas towards the end of 2025. Tesla's expectation for this new car is to maintain a growth rate of 50% annually, and by 2030, the market size may reach 700 million vehicles, almost twice that of models like the Model 3/Y. But the launch date of this new car is still 2025.
This also means that 2024 may be a difficult year for Tesla, as Musk said on the 25th, "Tesla is currently between two major growth waves." In 2024, low-priced models cannot be mass-produced, Cybertruck is still climbing, and older models are facing competition on all sides. How to survive 2024 while ensuring that profits do not decline significantly will become Tesla's biggest test.
Article | Reporter Leng Shuang