Tesla reported Monday an eye-popping $1.14 billion in net income in the second quarter, results that blew past analyst expectations and marked the first time the company’s quarterly profit (on a GAAP basis) has passed the three-comma threshold. The results pushed shares up more than 2.2% in after-hours trading.
Tesla was able to beat expectations and log its eighth straight quarter of profitability even as it grappled with supply chain challenges and losses stemming from its bitcoin investment. Operating income was $1.3 billion, which increased year over year from $327 million, due to volume growth and cost reduction, the company said. Those positive results were partially offset by an increase in operating expenses, supply chain challenges, lower regulatory credit revenue and the aforementioned bitcoin-related impairment of $23 million.
Supply chain challenges, notably the global shortage of semiconductor chips and congestion at ports, were two factors that affected its business in the second quarter. Tesla noted that it will continue to impact operations and its rate of delivery growth in 2021.
“With global vehicle demand at record levels, component supply will have a strong influence on the rate of our delivery growth for the rest of this year,” the company said in its shareholder deck released Monday.
Tesla reported revenue of $11.96 billion, a nearly 100% increase from the $6.04 billion it generated in the second quarter of 2020. Revenue in the second quarter was also higher than last quarter’s total of $10.39 billion. Analysts surveyed by Factset estimated $11.4 billion in revenue and $600 million in profit.
Tesla’s automotive revenue was $10.2 billion in the second quarter. Notably, only $354 million of that automotive revenue came from the sale of regulatory credits, 17% lower than last quarter and the lowest in the past four quarters. Meanwhile, Tesla’s automotive gross margins popped to 28.4%, a historic high for the metric.
Tesla’s Q2 net income of $1.14 billion compared favorably with the $104 million worth net income in the same period last year, a gain just shy of 1,000%. That record-setting number is nearly three times more its Q1 2021 net income of $438 million. Tesla’s adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter was $2.24 billion in the quarter, up from $1.21 billion in the same year-ago period, a gain of roughly 100%.
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Quarter-end cash and cash equivalents decreased to $16.2 billion in the second quarter, according to Tesla, which said that decrease was driven mainly by net debt and finance lease repayments of $1.6 billion, partially offset by free cash flow of $619 million.
Earlier this month, Tesla reported its produced 206,421 vehicles in the second quarter. Of those, the company delivered 201,250 vehicles, nearly 9% more than the first quarter of 2021.
