American automotive and energy company Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) announced on Thursday that it had replaced Volkswagen AG (ETR:VOW3) as the world’s second most valuable automotive producer.
The company broke through to a valuation of $102 billion or £76.1 billion, after a period of consistent growth in its share price.
This news marks just another significant development for the company, which, after earning its reputation as a loss-making enterprise, reported a rare quarterly profit in October.
Since then, the Company’s share price has more than doubled, and with this latest milestone being reached, Elon Musk could collect a payout worth $2.6 billion, contingent upon the company also earning revenue of $20 billion and earnings of $1.5 billion.
Tesla said that it had delivered more than 367,000 cars during the course of 2019, up some 50% from the year before.
This is due, in large part, to the opening of its Shanghai factory (which is little surprise to anyone familiar with the company’s issues with output and a long waiting list). It will also allow Tesla to capture a potentially lucrative Chinese market, which sees its number of affluent consumers grow by the day.
Looking forwards, the comapny still has some work to do on its output, with Volkswagen churning out 11 million units during the same period Tesla turned out fewer than 400,000.
It also has some way to go, to meet the lofty heights of Japanese car giant Toyota (LON:TYT), which currently has a valuation of $230.95 billion, and produces 9 million units per year.
Further food for thought is offered by way of investigations over battery fires and unexpected acceleration in its vehicles. So, not all sunshine and rainbows for Mr Musk yet, but perhaps in a better position than this time last year.
Since trading began on Thursday, the Company’s shares have rallied 4.09% or 22.36 USD to 569.56 USD per share 23/01/19 07:08 GMT.
