Stock rises

Shares in Li Auto (LI), up 44.8% in the past six months, rose 6.4% on Monday after the company reported deliveries of its electric cars and sales revenues for the third quarter of 2021 ended September 30.

Li Auto shares debuted on the Nasdaq exchange on 30 July 2020.

Li Auto's financial report

Li Auto reported a loss per share of $0.03 (RM0.13), below analysts' expectations of RM0.19. It is also better than the loss of RMB0.26 per share in the same quarter last year. Total quarterly revenue rose 209.7 per cent year-on-year and 54.3 per cent quarter-on-quarter to $1.21 billion. (RM7.78 billion), better than analysts' forecast of $1.13 billion. (RM7.3 billion).

Li Auto's deliveries in the third quarter of 2021

This strong revenue growth is attributed to a 190% increase in sales of Li ONE's only electric vehicle in the third quarter of 2021 to 25,116 units. Li Auto's quarterly delivery figures (Deliveries) from the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2019 are shown below.

Li Auto's research and development spending increased 165.6% to $137.9m (RM888.5m). (RMB888.5m) from RMB334.4m in Q3 last year. General and administrative expenses rose 198.5% to $158.5 million.

Li Auto also said the company will continue to raise spending to invest in technology and build a new plant in Beijing, which is scheduled to launch in 2023. Today, the company manufactures cars at its Changzhou plant.

Li Auto's forecast for Q4 2021

The company forecasts fourth-quarter 2021 revenue of $1.37 billion to $1.46 billion. (RMB 8.82- 9.41 billion), representing a year-on-year growth of 112.7% to 126.9%.

Li ONE's delivery forecast is between 30,000 and 32,000 units, which is a projection of 107.4% to 121.2% growth compared to the same quarter last year.

It is already known that Li Auto delivered 7,649 vehicles in the first month of Q4 2021 October. Accordingly, the current forecast implies deliveries of around 11,500 in November and December.

According to the company's management, the production capacity is higher at around 14,000 vehicles per month. The shortage of semiconductors around the world has prevented Li Auto from reaching this level.

However, the management plans to produce 14,000 to 15,000 cars a month sometime in 2022.