Nio’s shares listed in the U.S. saw a remarkable increase, climbing nearly 7% on Monday morning, reaching a four-month peak of $6.21. This surge follows a series of positive evaluations by Wall Street analysts, spurred by the company’s recent financial performance and the anticipation of new model releases next month.
The recent uptick follows significant gains from last week, with a notable 15% jump in share value on March 10 after Nio released its earnings report. Since then, the stock has seen an impressive rise of up to 25.7%.
Over the past year, Nio’s shares have been characterized by volatility.
The shares have nearly doubled, showing a 94% increase from their 52-week low of $3.02, which was recorded in April 2025.
After peaking at $8.02 in early September 2025, the stock value dropped by 45.4% by the end of the year.
Nio started trading in 2026 at $4.38 and has since rebounded by about 20.6%, aligning closely with a 22.3% gain over the past year.
Despite this recovery, the share price remains approximately 91% below the all-time high of $66.99 set in January 2021, coinciding with the launch of Nio’s ET7 flagship sedan.
At the time of writing, Nio was trading 3.8% higher at $6.09.
First Profitable Quarter
The upward trend began on February 5, when Nio issued a profit alert forecasting an adjusted operating profit of 700 million to 1.2 billion yuan ($100–172 million) for the fourth quarter of 2025.
The results disclosed on March 10 indicated that Nio had exceeded its breakeven expectations, as previously described by Li as “achievable” in January.
Nio reported a GAAP net profit of 282.7 million yuan ($40.4 million) — marking its first profit in a decade — compared to a net loss of 7.11 billion yuan ($1 billion) in the same quarter of the previous year.
The company aims for full-year non-GAAP operating profitability in 2026.
Revenue reached 34.65 billion yuan ($4.95 billion), reflecting a 76% year-over-year increase and a 59% quarter-over-quarter rise, surpassing analyst expectations of 33.25 billion yuan.
Nio also reported positive operating cash flow in both the third and fourth quarters of 2025.
By the end of 2025, Nio held 45.9 billion yuan ($6.67 billion) in cash and equivalents, an increase of 9.5% from the previous year, and generated positive operating cash flow in both Q3 and Q4.
In conjunction with these results, Nio announced a performance-based compensation package worth $1.17 billion for CEO Li, spread over ten tranches linked to market capitalization milestones of $30 billion to $120 billion and annual net income targets of $1.5 billion to $6 billion.
Analysts Turn Bullish
The positive financial results sparked a series of analyst upgrades.
HSBC upgraded Nio to “Buy” with a $6.80 price target, highlighting stronger-than-market delivery growth.
Nomura issued its first “Buy” rating in almost three years, setting a target of $6.60.
Macquarie also upgraded to “Outperform,” raising its target to $6.50, while Morgan Stanley maintained its “Overweight” rating with a $7.00 target.
Goldman Sachs retained its “Neutral” stance at $7.00, but now anticipates a non-GAAP EBIT breakeven by 2028, a year earlier than previously projected.
Deliveries and Margins
The vehicle gross margin rose to 18.1% last quarter, increasing by five percentage points year-over-year.
CFO Qu Yu credited the margin improvement to higher volumes, a product mix favoring the premium ES8 SUV, and cost savings on updated models.
The ES8 achieved a gross margin of nearly 25% last quarter, with December deliveries exceeding 22,000 units, representing nearly half of the company’s total monthly sales.
Earlier on Monday, Nio’s Head of Operations, Yang Bo, announced that the 80,000th ES8 will be delivered “this week,” indicating that production and delivery schedules are resuming after disruptions in February.
The company experienced a brief stock drop in early March following reports of its lowest vehicle registrations since July.
In the last five months of 2025, monthly deliveries surpassed 30,000 units, driven by high demand for the Onvo L90 during the summer and the new ES8 since September.
However, last month, the Onvo sub-brand experienced its lowest delivery numbers since its September 2024 launch.
Despite this, Deutsche Bank indicated that Nio’s new orders in the first three days of March reached the highest weekly rate of 2026 so far.
Nio aims to deliver between 80,000 and 83,000 vehicles in the first quarter, reflecting 90-97% year-over-year growth.
For the entire year, Li forecasted delivery growth of 40–50%, equating to approximately 456,000 to 489,000 vehicles.
The company is preparing to launch its new flagship large SUV, the ES9, in April, with expectations for the ES8 to remain a key contributor to monthly deliveries.
This will be followed by the unveiling of the five-seat Onvo L80 and minor updates to its entry-level models later in the year.
Original Story at eletric-vehicles.com