Chinese electric vehicle maker NIO (NIO 3.49%) reported delivering just over 7,100 vehicles in April, marking 125% growth over the comparable period one year ago. The month included several days of lost production as the company joined other automakers in dealing with the global semiconductor shortage.
Last week, NIO told investors that second quarter deliveries are expected to only be about 7% higher than the 20,060 it reported for the first quarter 2021. Back in March, NIO announced that chip supply issues would cause it to take a five-day outage that ran into several April production days. NIO founder, chairman, and CEO William Li expanded on that topic during the company's first quarter conference call last week. Li said the company now expects the supply chain problems will "continue to linger."
NIO ES6 electric SUV. Image source: NIO.
April deliveries were led by the company's ES6 SUV, which represented about 45% of vehicle sales. Though NIO currently only offers SUV models, the company will begin selling its ET7 luxury sedan early next year. CEO Li said the company is trying to take advantage of the forced downtime by modifying production lines in preparation for the ET7 production.
NIO and its partner JAC Motor also kicked off construction of a new industrial park in collaboration with the city of Hefei on April 29. The park will include a new manufacturing facility to support future production growth.
NIO reported a net loss of about $70 million in the first quarter, which represented about a 70% improvement compared to the fourth quarter of 2020. It also told investors that margins continue to improve, reporting vehicle margin of 21.2% and gross margin of 19.5%.
