1）营收：理想汽车Q3交付实现15.3万台，同环比分别+45.4%/+40.8%，单车均价对应27万元，同环比分别-15.5%/-3.2%，核心来自L6销量环比大幅提升，占总销量比环比+13pct。Soochow Securities released a research report stating that it maintains a 'buy' rating on Li Auto Inc (02015)W, due to the better-than-expected performance of the gross margin in 24Q3, raising the 2024 performance expectation to 7.8 billion yuan (previously 7.5 billion yuan). Considering the intensifying industry competition, the net income attributable to shareholders for 2025/2026 is lowered to 10.3/15.3 billion yuan (from 12.1/17.6 billion yuan), -34%/+33%/+48% year-on-year. The company achieved revenue of 42.87 billion yuan in 2024Q3, with automotive sales revenue reaching 41.32 billion yuan. Q3 net income attributable to common shareholders was 2.81 billion yuan, while non-GAAP net income reached 3.85 billion yuan.
The main viewpoints of Soochow Securities are as follows:
Q3 overall performance met expectations.
1) Revenue: Li Auto Inc delivered 0.153 million vehicles in Q3, up by +45.4%/+40.8% month-on-month, with an average vehicle price of 0.27 million yuan, down by -15.5%/-3.2% month-on-month. The significant increase in L6 sales volume was the main driver, accounting for +13 percentage points of the total sales increase.
2) Gross Margin: The company's overall gross margin in Q3 was 21.5%, down by -0.5/+2.0 percentage points month-on-month. The gross margin for automotive sales business was 20.9%, down by -0.3/+2.2 percentage points month-on-month. The strong performance of the gross margin was mainly due to the overall restraint of discounts in Q3 and a significant scale effect with a +41% increase in sales volume.
3) Expense Ratio: In Q3, the company spent 2.6 billion yuan on research and development expenses, and 3.4 billion yuan on SG&A expenses, resulting in expense ratios of 6.0%/7.8% respectively. This represents -2.1/+0.5 percentage points year-on-year and -3.5/-1.1 percentage points month-on-month improvements. The reason for the significant increase in SG&A expenses includes the confirmation of share-based compensation expenses for CEO Li Xiang in this quarter and an increase in employee compensation due to an increase in the number of employees. The company's channel expansion remained restrained, with a total of 479 retail centers nationwide as of the end of September, up by 2 stores compared to June end, showing significant individual store efficiency improvement. Research and development expenses decreased by 0.5 billion yuan month-on-month. The main reasons were reduced costs in the design and development of new products and technologies, as well as reduced employee compensation.
4) Interest Income and Investment Return: In Q3, it was -0.02 billion yuan, down by 0.46/0.39 billion yuan month-on-month, mainly due to the decrease in investment income from imotionautotech.
5) Profit: The company achieved a per vehicle profit of 0.025 million yuan (non-GAAP basis) in Q3, with changes of -23.6%/+82.0% month-on-month. The main reason for the improvement month-on-month was the increase in per vehicle gross profit under the scale effect and the decrease in per vehicle costs due to tight cost control.
6) Cash: As of September 30, 2024, the cash position was RMB 106.5 billion. The free cash flow in Q3 2024 was RMB 9.1 billion, turning positive on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
