Li Auto clocks 20.2% YoY jump in Q3 2022 revenue

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Li Auto Inc. announced on Friday its revenue reached 9.34 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) in the third quarter of 2022 (Q3 2022), jumping 20.2% year on year and also rising 7% quarter on quarter. 

In Q3 2022, Li Auto's vehicle sales amounted to 9.05 billion yuan ($1.27 billion yuan), growing 22.5% from the same quarter of 2021, while also climbing 6.6% from the second quarter of 2022 (Q2 2022). The company said the year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter increase mainly resulted from the higher average selling price due to the delivery of the Li L9 starting in late August.Li Auto recorded a gross profit of 1.18 billion yuan ($166.2 million) in Q3 2022, reflecting a 34.8% decrease from the previous year and a 37.1% drop from the previous quarter. 

In Q3 2022, gross margin of Li Auto stood at 12.7%, dropping 10.6 percentage points compared to Q3 2021, while also shrinking 8.8 percentage points from Q2 2022.

Photo credit: Li Auto

The company mainly ascribed the year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter decline in gross margin to the increase in its Q3 2022 cost of sales. 

For the Jul.-Sept. period of this year, Li Auto's vehicle margin came in at 12.0%, falling 9.1 percentage points year on year and also dipping 9.2 percentage points quarter on quarter, mainly due to the inventory provision and losses on purchase commitments related to the Li ONE.

Excluding the aforesaid effect, the company's vehicle margin in Q3 2022 was 20.8%. 

In Q3 2022, Li Auto witnessed its R&D expenses surge 103.1% from the year-ago period and jump 17.8% over the previous quarter to 1.8 billion yuan ($253.6 million). The year-on-year spike primarily flowed from the rising expenses related to new models to be introduced in the future and the increased employee compensation as a result of the growth in its number of R&D staff. The quarter-on-quarter growth was mainly driven by the climbing expenses related to the to-be-introduced new models.  

Li Auto still faced a net loss of 1.65 billion yuan ($231.3 million) in Q3 2022, versus the loss of 21.5 million yuan for Q3 2021 and the loss of 641.1 million yuan for Q2 2022. 

As of Sept. 2022, Li Auto saw its balance of cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, time deposits, short-term investments, as well as the long-term time deposits and long-term financial instruments included in long-term investments amount to 55.83 billion yuan ($7.85 billion). 

Li Auto expects its vehicle deliveries to stand between 45,000 and 48,000 units in the fourth quarter of 2022 (Q4 2022), which would jump 27.8% to 36.3% from the previous year.

Moreover, the company wishes to record a quarterly revenue of 16.51 billion yuan ($2.32 billion) to 17.61 billion yuan ($2.47 billion) in Q4 2022, representing an increase of 55.4% to 65.8% from the corresponding period of 2021.