NIO Financials Up Huge Year Over Year! But Market Not Happy.

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NIO has published its first quarter financials. There’s good news and less good news. The company was able to achieve an adjusted operational profit (non-GAAP) for the second quarter in a row, as well as an adjusted net profit (non-GAAP). However, the company didn’t achieve a GAAP operational profit or GAAP net profit, and the stock (NYSE:NIO) took a hit as a result, quite a big hit. The stock price dropped 7.14% in the past day, and it is down 14.33% across five days.

As we can see, compared to Q1 2025, last quarter was a massive improvement. Sales were up 129.2%, total revenues were up 112.2%, gross profit was up 428.4%, and gross margin jumped from 7.6% to 19.0%. Also, the company went from a huge non-GAAP operational loss and huge non-GAAP net profit in the first quarter of last year to the aforementioned non-GAAP operational profit and non-GAAP net profit.

However, compared to the 4th quarter, things don’t look so bright. In the 4th quarter of 2025, NIO actually made a GAAP profit from operations and a GAAP net profit, and much higher non-GAAP operational profit and net profit than in the 1st quarter of 2026. All of that said, the 1st quarter of the year is always much worse than the 4th quarter, and that’s especially true this year due to incentive changes — naturally, people were going to rush to buy cars in the 4th quarter before subsidies went away and then were less likely to buy them in the 1st quarter.

So, overall, all things taken into account, I think things look pretty good for NIO. Yes, it wouldn’t be good if this quarter-over-quarter downward trend was the beginning of something and led to NIO going back into net loss after net loss. However, having numbers drop from the 4th quarter to the 1st quarter is just the norm — almost a guarantee — and the year-over-year numbers look superb.

Here are some more key numbers: “Vehicle deliveries were 83,465 in the first quarter of 2026, representing an increase of 98.3% from the first quarter of 2025, and a decrease of 33.1% from the fourth quarter of 2025. The deliveries consisted of 58,543 vehicles from NIO brand, 13,339 vehicles from ONVO brand, and 11,583 vehicles from FIREFLY brand.”

The company also highlighted the debut of the NIO ES9 and the beginning of ONVO L80 deliveries.

Overall, these were the financial highlights of the first quarter:

Vehicle sales were RMB22,783.7 million (US$3,302.9 million) in the first quarter of 2026, representing an increase of 129.2% from the first quarter of 2025 and a decrease of 27.9% from the fourth quarter of 2025.
Vehicle marginii was 18.8% in the first quarter of 2026, compared with 10.2% in the first quarter of 2025 and 18.1% in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Total revenues were RMB25,532.7 million (US$3,701.5 million) in the first quarter of 2026, representing an increase of 112.2% from the first quarter of 2025 and a decrease of 26.3% from the fourth quarter of 2025.
Gross profit was RMB4,859.1 million (US$704.4 million) in the first quarter of 2026, representing an increase of 428.4% from the first quarter of 2025 and a decrease of 20.0% from the fourth quarter of 2025.
Gross margin was 19.0% in the first quarter of 2026, compared with 7.6% in the first quarter of 2025 and 17.5% in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Loss from operations was RMB308.8 million (US$44.8 million) in the first quarter of 2026, compared with loss from operations of RMB6,418.1 million in the first quarter of 2025 and profit from operations of RMB807.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. Excluding share-based compensation expenses, adjusted profit from operations (non-GAAP) was RMB66.8 million (US$9.7 million) in the first quarter of 2026, compared with adjusted loss from operations (non-GAAP) of RMB5,947.2 million in the first quarter of 2025 and adjusted profit from operations (non-GAAP) of RMB1,251.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Net loss was RMB332.1 million (US$48.1 million) in the first quarter of 2026, compared with net loss of RMB6,750.0 million in the first quarter of 2025 and net profit of RMB282.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. Excluding share-based compensation expenses, adjusted net profit (non-GAAP) was RMB43.5 million (US$6.3million) in the first quarter of 2026, compared with adjusted net loss (non-GAAP) of RMB6,279.1 million in the first quarter of 2025 and adjusted net profit (non-GAAP) of RMB726.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term investment and long-term time deposits were RMB48.2 billion (US$7.0 billion) as of March 31, 2026.