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Shares of electric vehicle maker XPeng (NYSE:XPEV) are down 0.10 % in pre-market trading on Wednesday after J.P. Morgan downgraded the company to Neutral (from Overweight) and cut the price target to $9.00 (from $11.00).
J.P. Morgan analysts wrote in a note, “we remain constructive on the NEV market this year, though we do project the growth rate will decelerate from around 80% last year to 20% in 2023. XPeng should benefit from this rising trend. Nonetheless, we note pricing competition in the mass segment is the fiercest, as evidenced by Tesla’s recent price cuts (for Model 3 and Y by ~5-9%), which we expect to weigh on mass market OEMs’ profitability, including XPeng.”
J.P. Morgan has revised their sales forecast down for XPeng. They now expect the company to deliver 28% volume growth this year to 155k units (vs previous 210k units), up from 121k units in 2022. Upside and downside risks include better- or worse-than-expected sales and profitability. The analysts noted that the company has made strategic changes among its senior management, including the marketing and product teams in 2H22.
