NIO revenue grows by 44%!

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NIO continues to grow. At the beginning of the month I was focused on covering Xpeng as a flood of news came in, and also boasted 5 consecutive months of growth in electric vehicle sales — both month over month and year over year! However, I haven’t gotten around to covering its most comparable peer, NIO. And despite Xpeng’s strong recent growth, NIO still sold more vehicles in July.

Although NIO cannot boast of a monthly turnover increase (slightly more vehicles were sold in June than July), it can boast strong year-on-year revenue growth. In July 2024, the company delivered 20,498 electric vehicles (the only type of vehicles it produces, of course). That's barely an increase from July 2023, when the company reached 20,462 vehicle deliveries, but keep in mind that last year's total was a 104% increase about July 2022. (It is also still slightly more than the 11,145 deliveries Xpeng was proud to announce this.)

That June total included 11,964 “premium smart electric SUVs” and 8,534 “premium smart electric sedans.” Xpeng and NIO like to use the term “smart” for their EVs, which differentiates them from the less technologically advanced EVs we've seen produced in recent years and places them more on the level of a Tesla. That said, new EVs these days are generally “smart” regardless of who makes them, so I'm not particularly fond of the term. However, I do agree that NIO and Xpeng still smarter vehicles then… well, pretty much everyone. So I get why they want to use this term.

Back to the sales figures: NIO delivered a total of 107,924 vehicles in the first 7 months of the year, again well above Xpeng’s 63,173. That total also represents a 44% (or 43.9%) increase compared to January-July 2023. Impressive growth!

Overall, the strong year-on-year revenue growth is a positive sign. Whether NIO is at the end of a huge growth and will now stagnate a bit remains to be seen. June's sales results were a 98% increase year after yearbut the total was 21,209, which is very similar to the July total.

In the company’s press release about July deliveries, it added: “On July 27, 2024, NIO hosted ‘NIO IN 2024’, where it further refined and deepened its systematic approach to technological innovation in smart electric vehicles. During the event, NIO unveiled major technological breakthroughs in various areas, including the 5nm intelligent driving chip, a full-domain vehicle control system, AI-driven smart systems, the global model for assisted and intelligent driving, and connectivity technology. NIO is committed to research and development and has developed comprehensive technological capabilities based on artificial intelligence, which continuously improve the user experience and strengthen the company’s competitive advantages.” That’s all exciting, but there’s no mention of a new model to boost sales or a clear strategy for dealing with Europe’s new tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles. Those seem to be the key factors to accelerate growth in the near term. Well, those things and entering new markets, like Xpeng does.

I'll end by saying that while it's interesting to compare NIO and Xpeng, I see them more as 'partners in crime' (or partners in climate justice if we want to put a more positive and logical spin on the idiom) than competitors. They are expanding markets, driving demand for new EVs, and growing EV sales and market share together. They both offer very compelling EVs that, in my opinion, are unmatched by anyone else in the world (said to be Tesla, Zeekr, and BYD, but I’d still prefer Xpeng and NIO). I’m excited to see them both posting double and sometimes triple digit percentage growth rates, so I hope they can keep it up. Doing that in consecutive years is much more impressive than doing it for a short time after increasing production capacity and model choices. Keep it up, guys!