Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) registered a sixth straight profitable quarter after reporting mixed Q4 and full-year results. While the company’s earnings missed estimate sales growth and record electric vehicle deliveries helped affirm growth metrics and long term prospects.
Earnings Miss
Q4 Adjusted earnings totaled 80 cents a share, mostly hurt by price cuts as the company sought to target the mass market. Earnings fell short of analysts’ expectations of $1.03 a share, and below a blowout $2.14 a share reported a year ago. It marked the first time that the company has missed Wall Street expectations since July of 2019.
Quarterly sales came in at stronger than expected at $1.07 billion, up 46% year-over-year. Proforma profits were up 95% as GAA profits more than doubled to $0.24 a share. Thanks to a 61% year-over-year increase in vehicles deliveries, Tesla reported a 28% year-over-year increase in full-year revenues that came in at $31.5 billion.
Likewise, 2020 marked the second year in a row that the EV giant has succeeded in generating positive free cash flow. The company’s free cash flow rose to $1.9 billion from $1 billion a year ago. Similarly, Tesla remains in a solid financial position to ramp up production to meet its electric cars' strong demand.
Ramping Up Production
Amid the COVID-19 challenges that threatened to affect production, Tesla registered a 36% year over year growth in vehicle deliveries. Buoyed by the strong momentum and demand in the market, the EV giant says it expects to increase vehicle deliveries by 50% in 2021 putting deliveries at more than 750,000 cars form about 500,000 in 2020.
2021 promises to be a good year as Tesla has already started Model Y production I Berlin and in its Texas factories. It is also planning to launch the Tesla Semi along with a new interior design for the Model S sedan.
In addition to growth in the electric vehicle segment, Tesla also continues to enjoy solid growth in its energy storage business. In Q4 energy storage installations rose to 1,584 megawatt-hours up from 530 megawatt-hours a year ago. The company ended the year with more than 3 Gigawatts-hours up 83% year over year.