Tesla earnings

Tesla shares fell 2.5 per cent after the world's most expensive car company released its quarterly results. Despite Tesla's record profit growth, sceptics saw many risks for the company in 2021.

Tesla (TSLA) shares reacted with a decline in non-trading hours to the company's first quarter 2021 financial report released after the close of trading on Monday.

The global leader in electric vehicle manufacturing beat analysts' average expectations for quarterly revenue and earnings, but gave no financial guidance for the second quarter and the current year.

Tesla's report

Earnings per share rose to $0.93 in the first quarter, a sharp increase from last year's figure of $0.25 and $0.14 better than analysts' average estimate of $0.79. Tesla's total profit reached a record $1.052 billion, but analysts point out that it was achieved by selling regulatory loans to other automakers and by selling $101 million worth of bitcoins during the quarter.

This raises concerns that Tesla risks facing a drop in profits as more carmakers switch to electric vehicles. Tesla said in February that it had bought $1.5bn worth of bitcoin and could potentially invest in other cryptocurrencies in the future. In the first quarter, management allowed the company's customers to buy Tesla cars with bitcoins.

Tesla's first-quarter revenues totaled $10.39 billion. That's up 129 percent from last year, but down 17 percent from the fourth quarter, but above analyst estimates of $10.29 billion.

Tesla executives said the Model 3 has become the world's best-selling premium sedan and reiterated their forecast for electric vehicle shipments to grow by at least 50% this year, a minimum of 750,000 units.