Xpeng increases turnover despite investment losses

The Chinese electric car manufacturer Xpeng has presented its business figures for the third quarter of 2020. Sales and turnover increased significantly, but the company’s loss was also higher due to further investments.

Xpeng delivered 8,578 vehicles between July and September, 266 per cent more than in the same quarter of the previous year and 166 per cent more than in the second quarter. Xpeng’s total revenues for the past quarter totalled 1.99 billion yuan (equivalent to 243 million euros), 343 per cent more than in Q3/2019 and 237 per cent more than in Q2/2020, with a net loss of 1.15 billion yuan (147 million euros), compared to 776 million yuan in the same period in 2019 and 146 million yuan in the second quarter of 2020.

The P7 electric sedan launch played an important role in the third-quarter figures. Xpeng started deliveries of its second model at the end of June and has since delivered 6,535 units of the electric sedan. Of these, 325 were still delivered at the end of June in the second quarter, and 6,210 vehicles were handed over to customers in the third quarter. According to Xpeng, 98 per cent of these vehicles support the semi-autonomous assistance systems ‘Xpilot’ in versions 2.5 or 3.0. Xpeng also likes to refer to their models as ‘Smart EV’.

“In our first quarter as a public company we achieved strong operating and financial results, highlighted by the rapid growth in deliveries of our P7 Smart EV,” said He Xiaopeng, Chairman and CEO of Xpeng. “Our commitment to innovation through end-to-end in-house R&D and data-driven capabilities is the cornerstone of our business. This will not only keep XPeng at the forefront of the technologies of Smart EV but also position us well in capturing the significant growth potential in the Smart EV industry.”

In the third quarter, vehicle sales revenues were by far the company’s most important source of revenue – of the 1.99 billion euros in revenues, 1.89 billion came from vehicle sales according to the quarterly release. Areas such as after-sales do not yet contribute much to turnover, let alone earnings.

The company is currently working on generating additional income through a new battery rental. The aim is to decouple battery costs from the purchase price of the vehicles. A corresponding service was launched in China on 1 September. This service has also initially generated costs in development.

gasgoo.com, xiaopeng.com (PDF)