Rivian stocks ( RIVN ) jumped as much as 24% on Friday as the electric vehicle maker reported better-than-expected vehicle sales for its quarter ended Dec. 31.
Rivian said Friday that it shipped nearly 14,200 electric vehicles during the fourth quarter, bringing its annual sales volume to roughly 51,580 electric trucks — within the company’s previous guidance. Wall Street analysts had expected the company to ship close to 13,400 electric vehicles for the period and 51,000 for the year.
Rivian stock had a rough 2024. The stock ended the year down 40% from 2023 and nearly 90% from its all-time high above $100 in the company’s high-profile 2021 market debut.
After its successful IPO three years ago, the Amazon-backed electric vehicle maker faced a mountain of obstacles: First, it grappled with a shortage of the necessary computer chips; then there was a major market shift away from electric cars just as competition from Tesla ( TSLA ) was heating up. The company has undergone an extensive cost-cutting campaign, reducing the workforce in multiple rounds of layoffs starting in 2022 and redesigning car components to make production cheaper.
Even with these efforts, Rivian’s operating losses have grown in the past year. In the third quarter of last year, Rivian’s revenue fell for the first time since it went public, falling 35% to $874 million from analysts’ expectations of $980 million as the company faced another production disruption thanks to miscommunication with a key supplier.
Rivian’s fourth-quarter shipment numbers released Friday “confirm that supply issues were isolated in the third quarter,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Tom Narayan wrote in a note to shareholders on Friday. Narayan has a Neutral rating on the stock and sees the stock hovering around $12 over the next 12 months. Shares traded above $16 on Friday.
Meanwhile, CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson maintained his sell rating on Rivian shares, with a price target of just $8, noting that Rivian’s “bottom losses are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.”
Rivian will report its full fourth quarter results on February 20.
