Chinese EV maker Nio reported on Tuesday its third quarter financial results, posting a 16.7% jump in total revenue and a net loss of 3.48 billion yuan — equivalent to $488.9million.
The Shanghai-headquartered firm saw its vehicle and gross margins improve both quarter over quarter and year over year.
However, the company trimmed its Q4 vehicle delivery guidance for the second consecutive quarter.
In the second quarter, the company founded and led by William Li had posted $685.2 million of losses from operations and a net loss of $697.2 million — marking a 31.2% reduction from a year ago.
Between July and September, and as it targets its first ever profitable quarter in Q4, Nio reported $494.7 million of losses from operations and a net loss of $488.9 million.
In a recent internal meeting, Li told staff that the profitability target was a goal the company “must trully achieve.”
Total Revenue
For the total revenue, Nio expected it to be between 21.812 billion yuan ($3.045 billion) and 22.876 billion yuan ($3.193 billion), which would represent an year over year increase of 16.8% to 22.5%.
Although third quarter vehicle deliveries jumped by about 40% year over year, total revenue saw a slower increase as the EV maker last year was not yet selling its two — significantly cheaper — sub-brands.
In 2024, Onvo started deliveries in late September while Firefly had not yet been launched.
For the final quarter of the year, the company expects total revenue to be between 32.758 billion yuan ($4.602 billion) and 34.039 billion ($4.781 billion) — an increase of 66.3%—72.8% year on year.
Vehicle Margin
Nio reported a Vehicle margin of 14.7%, up from the 13.1% recorded a year ago and from the 10.3% achieved in the second quarter of this year.
The company launched in May an updated version of its four cheapest models — ET5, ET5 Touring, ES6 and EC6 — where it started including its in-house developed chips.
The move allowed Nio to increase margins by saving about 10,000 yuan ($1,410) per vehicle sold.
Commenting on the results, the company’s chief financial officer Stanley Yu Qu highlighted the improvements in margins.
“Through continuous cost optimization and a greater contribution from higher-margin vehicle deliveries, our vehicle gross margin sequentially improved to 14.7% in Q3 2025, and the overall gross margin reached the highest level in the past three years, underscoring the enhanced profitability of our products and services,” he stated.
“Our continued efforts on operational efficiency improvement across R&D, sales and service also drove a quarter-on-quarter reduction of over 30% in non-GAAP operating losses, continuing the positive trend from the first half of 2025,” the CFO added.
Stanley Yu also highlighted that Nio “generated positive operating cash flow and positive results of operating cashflow net off the capital expenditures during the quarter” as part of the profitability path.
The CFO also mentioned impact of the equity offering announced by the EV maker a few days after the previous earnigns report.
“Bolstered further by the US$1.16 billion equity offering, our strengthened balance sheet provides a solid foundation for the path toward sustained, long-term growth,” Stanley Yu added.
Vehicle Deliveries
In early September, when reporting its second quarter results, Nio said it estimated to deliver between 87,000 and 91,000 vehicles in the third quarter.
The EV maker announced on October 1 that it had delivered 87,071 vehicles between July and September, narrowly meeting the low end of its guidance by just 71 units.
Chip Licensing
Last week, the local media outlet LatePost reported that Nio had secured the first customer to license its in-house developed autonomous driving chip Shenji NX9031.
Contacted by EV, the company did not comment on the report.
