Lucid Group shares are up around 50 percent so far this year amid a broad-based relief rally in growth-focused stocks. However, Lucid Group’s Q4 2022 earnings leave much to be desired if one were inclined to look for a solid foundation for this budding bullish trend.
Lucid Group’s Earnings for the Fourth Quarter of 2022: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
On a positive note, Lucid Group’s quarterly revenue increased by 31 percent on a sequential basis to $257.7 million on the back of 1,932 vehicles that the company delivered in the last quarter of 2022. The EV player recorded revenue of $608 million for the entire year.
Moreover, as we reported in a dedicated post a couple of weeks back, Lucid Group has managed to surpass its watered-down annual production target of between 6,000 and 7,000 vehicles. As per the final tally, the company produced 7,180 vehicles during the year, with 3,493 vehicles produced in the fourth quarter alone.
However, do note that the company’s deliveries have continued to lag its production cadence. In Q4, this mismatch stood at 1,561 units. When taking into account the full-year figures, this mismatch increases to 2,811 units.
Additionally, Lucid Group continues to burn cash like there is no tomorrow. As an illustration, the company ended the quarter with a net cash balance of $1.737 billion after burning $938,403 in free cash flow. This means that the company’s current cash burn rate stands at a whopping 54 percent of its net cash balance. Crucially, this decline occurred even as Lucid Group raised over $1.5 billion in fresh liquidity during the quarter via equity offerings.
$LCID results =
-Reservations down from 34K to 28K (!)
-2023 output guidance only 10K-14K
-Their SPAC deck in said 49K in 2023 output
-Q4 FCF burn at 53% of net cash
Tough scene.
Wrote about $LCID a couple of weeks ago:https://t.co/o3DaZjnogs
— Motorhead (@BradMunchen) February 22, 2023
As for the really ugly aspect, Lucid Group has provided production guidance of between 10,000 and 14,000 vehicles for FY 2023, substantially below the output of 49,000 units that the company had promised during its pre-SPAC-merger phase.
Additionally, the reservations for the Air EV declined by around 6,000 units during the quarter to around 28,000 units. When compared with deliveries of 1,932 units during Q4, this equates to a 3x decline! It is hardly a surprise, therefore, that Lucid Group’s shares are down over 10 percent in early pre-market trading today.
All is not doom-and-gloom, though. In recent days, rumors have emerged that Lucid Group might enter into a partnership with Aston Martin. This arrangement is apparently being spearheaded by the Saudi PIF, which retains a major stake in both companies.
The post Uh-oh: The Reservations for Lucid Group’s Air EV Declined at a Rate That Is Over Three Times Its Quarterly Deliveries for Q4 2022 by Rohail Saleem appeared first on Wccftech.
