By Scott Kanowsky
Investing.com -- US-listed shares in XPeng Inc. (NYSE:XPEV) were trading lower on Friday after analysts at Bernstein downgraded their rating of the Chinese electric carmaker to market perform from outperform.
The move comes after XPeng reported a nearly 40% decline in fourth quarter total revenues compared to the same period last year to RMB 5.14 billion, missing Bloomberg consensus estimates of RMB 5.69B.
Vehicle deliveries, in particular, slumped by just over 45% year-on-year during the three months to ended on December 31 and dropped for the fourth straight quarter. On an annual basis, deliveries grew by 23% year-on-year to 120,757 but fell far short of the group's initial target of 250,000.
China's strict zero-COVID policy heavily impacted XPeng because its sole factory and several suppliers are based near Guangzhou and Shanghai - both areas that were a major focus of the national restrictions.
Earlier this year, chairman and chief executive officer He Xiaopeng told Bloomberg that the company now expects to post an operating profit in 2025, pushing back its prior guidance that it would break even this year or in 2024.