Shares of electric car-maker Tesla closed 4.36 percent higher at $308.35 on Friday, two days after the company declared its first quarter (Q1) results. The share price had dropped 5 percent on Thursday after the company announced its financial performance on Wednesday.
Revenues hit a record $2.7 billion on the back of sale of 25,051 vehicles, though the loss per share shot up to $1.33, far higher than 81 cents estimated by analysts. Cash on hand was $4 billion.
The company said that it is on course that its six-month (January-June) sales would be in the range of 47,000 to 50,000 units. Tesla is on schedule to launch its Model 3 in July.
"We have made a solid start to what should be an exciting 2017. Vehicle production in Q1 increased by 64% compared to a yearago, which enabled us to set new quarterly records of 25,051 deliveries and $2.7 billion in GAAP revenue. Model 3 activities related to vehicle development, manufacturing equipment installation and supplier readiness remain on plan to start production in July.
"Over the past several months, we have been deploying our internally-developed software into the vehicle fleet, to providea dditional safety and convenience features for vehicles with the newest generation of Autopilot hardware. Finally, we have started expanding the number of stores displaying our comprehensive product portfolio of energy generation and storage products forhome use," Tesla said in a letter to shareholders.
On the launch of its much-awaited product Model 3, the letter said, "Preparations at our production facilities are on track to support the ramp of Model 3 production to 5,000 vehiclesper week at some point in 2017, and to 10,000 vehicles per week at some point in 2018."
Based on the Friday closing price, the market capitalisation of Tesla was $50.62 billion. In comparison, Ford's market capitalisation was $44.35 billion.
Tesla designs, develops, manufactures and sells high-performance fully electric vehicles, and energy storage systems, in addition to installing, operating solar and energy storage products, says its profile on Nasdaq.
Elon Musk, who co-founded Tesla, is the chairman, product architect and CEO of the company.
