Is it too early to consider nominating Tesla to the Hall of FAANG?? Maybe we should call it TFAANG? 🤣 Jokes aside, the American automaker topped off its end-of-year earnings today in spectacular fashion.
Earnings per share:Â $2.54 adjusted, +218% (analysts expected $2.36)
Revenue:Â $17.72 billion, +65% YoY (analysts expected $16.57 billion)
$15.97 billion of Tesla’s reported revenue came from automotive revenues, which were up 71% YoY. The company delivered 296,884 Model 3 and Y models in Q4 (and an additional 11,766 Model S and X models.) As we’ve seen from previous quarters, the decline in Model S and X production was sustained (-19% YoY), mostly at the cost of the Model 3 and Y’s success (+79% YoY.)
The company’s takeaway profit and margin rose nearly 6.5% YoY, helping pull up Tesla’s net income and net free cashflow to over $2 billion each.
If we zoom out from these stellar figures, Tesla pushed 2021 revenue to $53.82 billion, a 71% increase YoY. Pretty impressive for a company that was assailed a number of years ago for being “unsustainable” and “only profitable because of regulatory credit sales” (which represented an unimpressive $314 million, -22% YoY, in the quarter.)
The company also provided product updates in its earnings presentation about:
- Gigafactory construction in Shanghai, Berlin, and Texas. Tesla also indicated it’s still looking for a place to put its Tesla Semi, Roadster, and “Future Product” production line.
- Tesla suggested that it had become an industry leader in GAAP operating margin (TTM) by preserving costs. The company noted its operating margins were 12.1% in 2021, which bested nearly every other vehicle maker.
- More than 60,000 vehicles are now operating on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta. In Q3 2021, that figure was just 2,000. This implies that the company’s self-driving ambitions are in high-gear.
- While Tesla is making most of its revenues from automobile sales, the company has put its energy business and other ventures on the back-burner. That’s probably because Tesla expects to achieve “50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries” over a multi-year horizon. The only thing that can stop them? Supply chain nonsense. 🙄
All-in-all, $TSLA is starting to realize the value that investors anticipated many years ago. Many fundamentals ratios have started to fall back to Earth, while the price of the stock has stayed relatively stable. With this great success, Musk might receive the tail-end of his stock grant gift, aka another possible multi-billion dollar payday. 💰 💰
$TSLA is down 1% in afterhours.