Tesla, a maker of electrical vehicles (EVs), has reported its largest quarterly net profit from October to November 2021. The company reports profits of over USD 2 billion for the first time.
Profits rise
Tesla’s fourth-quarter net profit rose approximately 760% YoY to over USD 2.3 billion, a rise of almost USD 700 million on the same period in the previous year. Over the period, revenue jumped 65% to over USD 17.7 billion.
The Nasdaq-listed company’s stock price rose more than 2 per cent to USD 937.4 a share on Wednesday, giving the company a market capitalisation of USD 941.1 billion.
In a statement, the company claimed that its cash and equivalents “increased sequentially by $1.5bn to $17.6bn” and that these figures were largely driven by free cash flow of $2.8bn, partially offset by net debt and finance lease repayments.
Increasing production
Tesla claims to have delivered a record 940,000 vehicles last year, and will be seeking to increase its production and market share in the coming year. “We aim to increase our production as quickly as we can, not only through ramping production at new factories in Austin and Berlin, but also by maximising output from our established factories in Fremont and Shanghai,” Tesla said.
Covid-related challenges
The company said that it had experienced Covid-related challenges across supply chain, transport, labour and other manufacturing areas in the previous quarter that limited its “ability to run factories at full capacity”.
The statement claimed that the company has sufficient liquidity to fund its future product road map, long-term capacity expansion plans and other expenses and that Tesla plans to grow its manufacturing capacity to achieve 50 per cent average annual growth in vehicle deliveries.
The EV market is growing rapidly with companies including Mercedes Benz, Volvo and Wolkswagen recently announcing new electrical models.
