(Source: CnEVPost)

Xpeng Motors reported unaudited earnings earlier today, showing record first-quarter revenue of RMB 2.95 billion (US$450.4 million), beating Wall Street expectations of RMB 2.886 billion.

Here's a quick read from Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu's team:

Xpeng delivered solid 1Q results as previewed. Deliveries were already reported at 13,340 units, leading to revenue of 2.95bn RMB, slightly above our/consensus 2.87bn forecast.

Overall, gross margin of 11.2% was above our 10.1% estimate (consensus in low 9% range), driven by both higher vehicle margin (10.1%) and other gross margin (32.2%).

Vehicle margin benefitted from recognition of XPILOT software revenue and lower material costs (+330bps QoQ to 10.1%, ahead of our 9.7%).

Opex of 1,256m came in lower than expected (DBe at 1,378m) due to lower SG&A, mainly for advertising; R&D was slightly higher due to higher engineering compensation and P5 development costs.

All together, EPS of (0.88) beat our/ consensus (1.06)/(1.14) estimates. See Figure 1 for more details.

Management provided largely in line guidance for 2Q21 calling for 15,500-16,000 deliveries, matching our 15,750 model at the mid-point. This is expected to translate into sales of 3.4-3.5bn, essentially in line with our/consensus 3.4bn forecast.

On the earnings call, we will look for further details about the monthly volume rampup cadence (cheaper LFP models starting to get delivered, G3 mid-cycle refresh in 3Q) and the upcoming P5 sedan launch, where we sense investor concern about the vehicle pricing potentially being too high and readiness of Livox's LiDAR.