NIO Q2: Gross Margin Surprise, Delivery Concerns – Can It Bounce Back in H2?
NIO released its 2026 Q2 results. The company posted quarterly revenue of RMB 32.2 billion, up 69% year‑on‑year but below Bloomberg consensus of RMB 33.36 billion. Q2 vehicle deliveries came in at approximately 107,600 units, a 49% YoY increase, missing the Bloomberg estimate of 111,500 units. Gross margin for Q2 2026 was 18.4%, compared with 10.0% in Q2 2025.
Auto business gross margin reached 18.5% in the quarter, up approximately 85% year‑on‑year and above the Bloomberg consensus of 17.64%. NIO’s premium strategy delivered solid results: the NIO brand ranked first in the RMB 350,000+ price segment in China; the ES8 surpassed 140,000 cumulative deliveries in 335 days since launch, and remained a leader in the RMB 400,000+ segment and the large SUV category; the ES9, positioned as a tech‑flagship executive SUV, converted traditional luxury fuel SUV users and ranked No.1 in the RMB 500,000+ market for two consecutive months (June and July). The Onvo L90 and L80 helped the Onvo brand become the top seller in the RMB 200,000–300,000 large SUV segment. Meanwhile, the Firefly maintained its No.1 market share in China’s premium compact car segment for 15 straight months. The three brands collectively cover the RMB 200,000–500,000+ price spectrum, with product mix shifting toward higher‑margin ES8 and ES9 models, underpinning NIO’s margin improvement.
R&D expenses in Q2 fell 28.7% year‑on‑year to RMB 2.14 billion, mainly due to organisational optimisation and changes in project development stages.
On next‑quarter guidance, NIO guided Q3 deliveries of 108,000–110,000 units, below market expectations of 123,000 units. July and August monthly deliveries both stayed around 36,000 units, implying September volume of only 36,000–38,000 units. The initial hype from new models (Onvo L80, ES9, and the five‑seater ES8 launched in July) has faded, and the backlog of pre‑orders has been largely cleared, with new orders returning to normal levels – hence limited incremental momentum in September. That said, ASP guidance remains strong: despite flat delivery volume, the implied Q3 average selling price per vehicle is RMB 278,000–280,000, up from RMB 270,000 in Q2, driven by a higher mix of ES8/ES9, which supports gross margin. Nevertheless, at the current market cap, NIO trades at less than 0.6x 2026E P/S, suggesting that pessimistic expectations are largely priced in, leaving limited downside for the stock.$NIO Inc.(NIO)$$NIO-SW(09866)$
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- bouncee·10:02Gross margin beat is nice, but repeated delivery misses are still the whole story. At 0.6x sales the bad news feels priced in, now it needs an actual delivery inflection.LikeReport
- GregoryRichardson·10:02ASP is the part people keep missing. If ES8 and ES9 mix holds, margin can do more work than deliveries in H2LikeReport