By Senad Karaahmetovic
Shares of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) are down more than 3% in pre-open Tuesday after the electric vehicle (EV) maker reported it delivered over 405,000 units in the fourth quarter of 2022, missing the average analyst estimates.
Year-over-year (YoY), vehicle deliveries grew by 40%. The total 2022 production growth was 47%, below Tesla's goal of 50%. The EV company said it produced more than 439,000 EV units in Q4, growing 47% YoY.
“We continued to transition towards a more even regional mix of vehicle builds which again led to a further increase in cars in transit at the end of the quarter,” the company said in a press release.
According to Refinitiv, analysts were looking for 431,117 delivered vehicles, while Bloomberg consensus stood at 420,760.
According to Goldman Sachs, Tesla’s Q4 deliveries were also below the buy-side consensus. For their analysts, the Q4 delivery report is “an incremental negative.” As a result, they cut the price target on Tesla stock to $205 from the prior $235 per share.
Still, the analysts remain Buy-rated on Tesla as the EV maker is “well positioned for long-term growth given its position as a cost and full solution leader in clean mobility/EVs (a market that we expect to exhibit significant long-term growth).”
JPMorgan analysts cut the price target on Tesla to $125 from the prior $150 per share and reiterated an Underweight rating on the EV stock.
“Supply is unlikely to be the limiting factor for Tesla deliveries in 2023 that it has been in prior years, such that a material deliveries miss vs. expectation could be particularly injurious to long-term investor expectations,” they wrote.
Vital Knowledge analysts said the 405K number “may not be a terrible surprise”.
“The fact they cleared that level is a modest positive,” the analysts wrote in a note.
“Not that we think TSLA is a screaming buy by any means, but extremely subdued earnings expectations is one reason we’re more bullish than the consensus on the broader market.”
Finally, Citi analysts added:
“Although the soft Q4 outcome isn’t entirely shocking given recent China COVID developments, the delivery miss (vs. reduced estimates & post recent price actions) will likely escalate concerns over NT macro/competitive demand pressures at a time when Tesla is adding significant capacity on existing products. At ~30x consensus ’22 EPS and with sentiment already quite negative, an argument can be made that much of the bad news is already priced in,” they wrote in a note.
However, they see Tesla stock struggling to recover “until gross margin visibility improves.”
Tesla stock fell 65% in 2022.