Nio first-quarter earnings whiff proves Chinese competition isn’t just for foreign automakers

Chinese luxury EV maker Nio reported its first-quarter results on Tuesday, missing Wall Street’s revenue and earnings expectations. Sales of $12 billion were below the consensus estimate, while the adjusted loss per share of $3.01 was much larger than the anticipated loss per share of $2.54 that analysts polled by Bloomberg had penciled in.

Shares of the automaker were down about 3% in premarket trading, but since rebounded to about flat.

Nio reported 23,231 deliveries in May, its third straight month of declines.

It’s been a steep drop-off for Nio in recent years as Chinese market leader BYD has grown. Nio has tried to separate itself through battery progress — one of its batteries allows for 650 miles on a single charge, the world’s longest range — but its shares are still down more than 30% over the past 12 months.

At its peak in early 2021, Nio had a market value of more than $98 billion. But years of intense competition from the likes of BYD and Tesla have sent that plunging. Its market cap is now about $7.9 billion.