Lost money for 11 years, NIO finally turned a profit! Li Bin's boast has come true

Founded 11 years ago, NIO, which has been operating at a loss for a long time, has finally achieved profitability.

This time, Li Bin can hold his head high.

According to the recently released financial report, NIO’s operating profit in Q4 last year was 1.25 billion yuan, marking the company’s first quarterly profit.

Annual revenue reached 87.49 billion yuan, a 33.1% increase year-over-year; total gross profit was 11.92 billion yuan, up 83.5%; deliveries totaled 326,000 units, a 46.9% increase. Among them, the Leado and Firefly brands contributed over 44% of sales, showing initial signs of synergy from the multi-brand strategy.

Notably, NIO’s vehicle gross profit margin increased to 18.1%, a three-year high. Many people don’t understand what this margin signifies. For comparison, Leap Motor, with high sales, had only a 14.5% gross profit margin in Q3 last year. A higher gross profit usually indicates stronger profitability and greater market competitiveness.

If we rewind to early 2025, when Li Bin announced the goal of profitability in Q4, few believed it.

On social media, there were rampant rumors of collapse. Li Bin admitted, “The Leado brand previously lost up to 40% of orders, mainly due to the continued fermentation of negative public opinion.”

Over the past few years, NIO has faced many criticisms, but the subtlety lies in the fact that most controversies are not about the products themselves but about operational efficiency, battery swap routes, and whether the company can survive cycles.

In other words, many potential users don’t think the cars are bad; they worry whether the company can sustain itself long-term after purchase.

In reality, despite losses, NIO has always believed that its main assets are invested in battery swap stations. As one of the first domestic automakers to promote large-scale battery swapping, NIO has invested about 18 billion yuan in this network.

Therefore, from an operational perspective, there’s no problem!

NIO’s battery swap model has always been unique among new carmakers, offering consumers a distinctive value proposition.

It’s not easy for NIO to turn a profit in China’s highly competitive automotive market in 2025. Although the annual target was not fully met, the words “turning losses into profits” say it all.

The turning point began with the launch of the Leado L90.

This model, with a massive 240-liter front trunk and highly competitive pricing, fully outperformed the Li Auto i8 in direct competition.

The success of the NIO ES8 was also crucial. Deliveries broke 10,000 units in just 41 days, setting a record, with a gross profit margin exceeding 20%, boosting overall gross profit. The self-developed chip NX9031 was applied at scale, reducing per-vehicle costs by about 10,000 yuan.

Actually, even before this, Li Auto and Leap Motor had already gone ahead, and Xpeng Motors had basically achieved quarterly profitability.

But, on the other hand, a single quarter of profit might rely on short-term sales of popular models. For NIO, Xpeng, and other new energy vehicle companies, achieving quarterly profit is just the first step over a big mountain.

After all, making money isn’t the real skill; the key is to keep making money and maintain profit margins amid fierce price wars. That’s the most important challenge moving forward.