Earnings Call Transcript - PSNY Q3 2025

Anna Gavrilova, Head of Investor Relations

Hello, everyone. I'm Anna Gavrilova, Head of Investor Relations at Polestar. Thank you for joining this call covering Polestar's select results for the third quarter and first 9 months of 2025. I'm joined by Michael Lohscheller, Polestar's CEO; and Jean-Francois Mady, Polestar's CFO, who will comment on the performance, and then we will open the floor to analysts' questions. Before we start, I would like to remind participants that many of our comments today will be considered forward-looking statements under the U.S. federal securities laws and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause Polestar's actual results to differ materially from what has been communicated. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the future financial performance of the company, production and delivery volumes, financial and operating results, near-term outlook and medium-term targets, fundraising and funding requirements, macroeconomic and industry trends, company initiatives and other future events. Forward-looking statements made today are effective only as of today, and Polestar undertakes no obligation to update any of its forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the factors that could cause our actual results to differ, please review the risk factors contained in our SEC filings. In addition, management may make references to non-GAAP financial measures during the call. A discussion of why we use non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measure can be found in the appendix of the press release and in the Form 6-K published today. Now I will hand over to Michael.

Michael Lohscheller, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Our focus in the last quarter has been delivering on our strategic plans, transforming our commercial operations, increasing our retail footprint and improving our operational efficiency. We are making significant progress across all three of these areas in the face of a very challenging economic environment. Nine months into the year, I am particularly pleased with the progress of our commercial transformation. Compared to last year, we have increased the number of sales points, excluding China, by 54% to 192. Combined with a more active sales model, this is an important part of the foundation for our volume growth of 36% in the first 9 months of the year. The pace of retail expansion remains high. And in the month of October alone, we have opened nine new sales points across Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the U.K., and the Netherlands. Five of these are new openings. Four of them are strategic moves away from smaller boutique-style city center locations to larger out-of-town locations, making it easier for more people to test drive and buy a Polestar. Our expansion in France is also proceeding as planned. Retail sales in the third quarter grew by 13% versus the same quarter last year and by 36% for the first 9 months of the year. Revenue grew by 36% in the third quarter and by 49% in the first 9 months. Europe remains our main market, representing over 75% of our global deliveries. Our most important European markets delivered strong year-on-year growth during the first 9 months. Belgium and the Netherlands grew by 40% and 37%, respectively. Germany grew by 46%. Norway grew by 63%. Sweden grew by 41%, and the U.K. grew by 100%. Korea remains our strongest performing market in Asia with growth of 430%. At the start of the year, we announced a shift in platform strategy. Moving forward, we will utilize group technology platforms for future models, giving us access to the best EV technology available in the fastest and most efficient manner. The restructuring and refocusing of our R&D operations that this enables started during the second quarter and has continued into the latter part of the year. Last month, we announced further staff reductions of around 230 roles. We will continue to optimize the structure of our operations and expect to end the year at approximately 2,000 employees, down from 2,500 at the start of the year, a reduction of 20%. This process will continue as we take steps to protect our business in the face of industry headwinds. Last week saw the start of sales of Polestar 4 in North America, with media continuing to give this incredible car high praise for its performance, design and technology. The Polestar 4s that are set to be delivered to customers starting in Canada are the first Polestar 4s manufactured at the Busan, South Korean factory, making this car even more competitive on the North American market. Having spent last week with our dealers from Canada and the U.S., I'm very excited about the prospects for this SUV coupe in the two very important markets. Our full focus is on ending the year in a strong way, and we expect to provide guidance in the beginning of 2026. With that, I'll end my opening remarks and hand over to Jean-Francois.

Jean-Francois Mady, Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Thank you, Michael. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. With continued growth in retail sales volume and revenue year-on-year, the financial results for the third quarter and the first 9 months of 2025 demonstrate strong commercial performance at the top line. However, significant external headwinds, notably tariff and pricing pressure, continued to impact profitability, including in the third quarter. Looking at the financial results for the first 9 months of 2025, retail sales volume as preannounced increased by 36% to over 44,000 cars. Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 made up 65% of the retail sales. By geography, we continue to see particularly strong performance in Europe, as mentioned by Michael, notably in the U.K., Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and across the Nordic region, but also in APAC, led by South Korea. The U.S. market remained challenging as tariff and policy changes continue to impact profitability, and we need to do more on localization of parts and components to be efficient. The U.S. represented 8% of our retail sales for the first 9 months of 2025 from 16% in 2024. We operate in 28 countries worldwide, including now in France, which launched in June. Our commercial transformation is progressing at pace with another 11 new retail partners signed up in the third quarter of 2025, bringing the total to 141 active retail partners at the end of September, contributing to the development of our sales points. As a result, revenue grew by 49% to about USD 2.2 billion in the first 9 months of 2025. The drivers were: first, higher sales volume and a growing share of higher-priced models, Polestar 3 and Polestar 4, in the sales mix. Second, carbon credit sales amounted to $104 million under the new EU pooling agreement versus sales of below $1 million for the same period in 2024. Another $19 million is booked in other operating income. In this context, we have already hit our target of a three-digit million dollar amount to be delivered this year. At the same time, pressure on pricing continues to grow due to the challenging market condition, and we incurred costs related to the residual value guarantee in the North American market. The adjusted gross margin improved by 0.3 percentage points to a negative 1.8%. The evolving product and geographical sales mix and growing carbon credit sales supported the improvement of adjusted gross margin. Moreover, continuous reduction of cost of materials, including for batteries, allows us to partially mitigate higher lending costs. External headwinds, pressure on pricing and current tariffs were still significant. In this period, adjustment of inventory to net realizable value and expenses related to residual value guarantee further impacted negatively Polestar's profitability. Selling, general and administrative expense, excluding the sales agency remuneration, continued to decrease at the pace indicated in the first half of 2025. The reduction reflects optimized marketing and advertising costs and lower general and administrative costs resulting from cost discipline and organizational restructuring. We are also reducing headcount, predominantly in research and development, as we have begun to implement our previously announced strategy to make better use of existing architecture from our partners, specifically Geely Group, for future Polestar models as commented by Michael. Adjusted EBITDA loss of $561 million improved by 8%, reflecting: first, fixed cost reduction due to optimized marketing spend and a lower headcount; second, carbon credit income; third, positive foreign exchange impact. These positive elements were partially offset by slightly higher adjusted gross loss and higher sales agency remuneration linked to growing sales volume. Briefly touching on the reported figures, gross margin of negative 34% and net loss of USD 1.6 billion primarily reflect the impairment expense of $739 million for Polestar 3 booked in the second quarter of 2025. Now turning to the results for the third quarter of 2025. Retail sales grew by 13% year-on-year to over 14,000 cars sold. Revenue increased 36% to $748 million, driven mainly by higher volume, higher-priced Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 models in the mix and carbon credit sales. This was partially offset by pressure on pricing and residual value guarantee adjustment related to the North American market. Revenue from sale of carbon credits was $32 million in the quarter from nil in 2024. Gross margin at negative 6%, a deterioration of 5 percentage points, was a result of: first, pressure on pricing; second, tariffs; third, adverse mix effect from the sale of Polestar 2 and Polestar 3, specifically the sale of Polestar 3 in the U.S. Finally, inventory was adjusted to net realizable value, and we incurred expenses related to residual value guarantees in the North American market. Net loss was $365 million in the third quarter. Adjusted EBITDA loss of $259 million increased year-on-year, mainly because of higher gross loss, higher sales agency remuneration and negative foreign exchange impact, only partially compensated by a reduction of SG&A expenses. On the funding of our operation and liquidity, during the first 9 months of this year, we raised $200 million of new equity from PSD Investments Limited, an entity that is controlled by Mr. Eric Li, Founder and Chairman of Geely Holding Group. We also secured about $1 billion worth of new facilities and renewed about $2.2 billion of existing facilities. Our cash position at the end of September was $995 million, and Polestar was compliant with its loan covenants as of 30 September 2025. With the support from Geely Holding Group, we continue to make progress towards securing new equity and debt funding. Also, we plan to launch a reverse stock split shortly to change the ratio of our American depositary shares to ordinary shares, which is currently 1:1. Details will be announced separately. To conclude, our priorities remain: first, driving growth through the active selling model and leveraging our attractive model lineup; second, improving processes, streamlining the organization and operation, looking for further synergies; third, extracting efficiencies and cutting costs; and last but not least, securing new equity funding. Now I will hand over back to the operator.

Operator, Operator

The conference is now open for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Winnie Dong from Deutsche Bank.

Winnie Dong, Analyst (Deutsche Bank)

I was wondering if you can help us bridge the walk for gross margin a bit more. You mentioned geographical sales mix and reduction of material costs, but then there's also pressure on pricing. So I wonder if you can give us a bit more detail on the puts and takes.

Jean-Francois Mady, Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Winnie, thanks for your question. I think you want to bridge the walk between Q3 gross margin and Q2 gross margin. The result of Q3 has been clearly disappointing for us. First, we continue to suffer pricing pressure on our vehicles in addition to higher cost of production due to duties. In addition to that, we had some adverse mix effect in the sense that we sold more Polestar 2 and more Polestar 3 than Polestar 4, which was not the expected mix. At the same time, we have successfully partially compensated some of those negative impacts by continuing to reduce product costs and fixed costs. On the Polestar 3 adverse mix impact, I would like to comment that we executed some tactical sales, especially in the U.S., because this is where most of this negative mix effect is coming from. We took the opportunity of the end of the tax incentive in the U.S. to destock many Polestar 3 units, and this is where this negative mix impact is mostly coming from.

Winnie Dong, Analyst (Deutsche Bank)

Okay. And then second, I was wondering if you can maybe just comment on the OpEx spending trends in the quarter and how we should foresee on a go-forward basis how that would trend into next year.

Jean-Francois Mady, Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Yes. I will not comment into the detail about Q3. But as you know, we realized a significant decrease of our fixed costs, especially at the end of H1 compared to last year at around minus 10%. Those decreases come from two main levers. The first is the optimization of our marketing expenses, which is coming from reduced spend. The second lever is mainly driven by the reduction of headcount. We are consolidating our organization, realizing efficiencies and synergies. We started the year with 2,500 headcount, and we still have the objective to reach 2,000 headcount by year-end. Looking at Q3 and Q4, we want to accelerate on those levers, and I think we have good momentum entering Q4 now.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Tobias Beith from Rothschild & Co Redburn.

Tobias Beith, Analyst (Rothschild & Co Redburn)

I have two questions, if I may. I'll ask them separately. Michael, since we spoke last, a bilateral trade agreement has been struck between the EU and the U.S. On paper, it seems quite helpful for Polestar's unit profits, particularly on the Polestar 3. I wondered if I could hear your thoughts today on how you and the rest of the management team have or may be thinking about adapting your business plan for the next couple of years.

Michael Lohscheller, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Sure. Happy to do that, Tobias. Let's talk U.S. in a bit more detail because we have a setup where, on the one hand, we have local production in Charleston, where we join the Volvo factory, which I think is a good basis because we try to localize as much as we can. At the same time, parts from Mexico, for example, still incur duties. It's a good setup, but it is also affected by duties. Another important aspect for the U.S. business model is that we now bring the Polestar 4 to the U.S. from South Korea. We feel this is a very good setup because that has much lower duties than from Europe or from China and is a good basis. But it's a complicated world, as you say, because duties change quite a bit. We feel with the local setup in the U.S. and the South Korean factory, we have a good configuration to optimize our U.S. business model. I hope that answers your question.

Tobias Beith, Analyst (Rothschild & Co Redburn)

Yes. Maybe just on that, what about going the opposite way around? There is now an opportunity for you to earn more profits on Polestar 3 if exported into Europe. Could you comment on that?

Michael Lohscheller, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Yes, that is an opportunity for us as well. We also have opportunities to produce in China. Once you have invested into the tooling and setup, it's not easy to change immediately. But as you rightly highlight, it is an opportunity which we are exploring and might use if appropriate for us.

Tobias Beith, Analyst (Rothschild & Co Redburn)

Okay. Understood. Jean-Francois, if I'm not mistaken, a substantial portion of Polestar's debt portfolio was renewed in the period and also slightly broadened by, call it, $300 million. I wondered what is the new go-forward effective rate of interest on Polestar's debt portfolio? And is it floating mostly?

Jean-Francois Mady, Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

I would say that most of our interest rates are based on references, so they are floating, yes.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Andres Sheppard from Cantor.

Andres Sheppard-Slinger, Analyst (Cantor)

I was wondering maybe we could get an update on capital needs and liquidity. Can you give us a sense of cash burn, what it was, what you expect for it going forward, and what is the timing for those additional capital requirements?

Jean-Francois Mady, Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Okay. Thanks, Andres, for the question. In terms of cash burn, as I commented in H1, for the first semester we had a monthly cash burn of around USD 136 million per month. I mentioned at that time that the level of cash burn would increase during the second semester due to cash out related to legacy CapEx. But compared to last year, if I look at normalized cash burn, we are improving month after month. This is due to the fact that we are cutting losses looking at our adjusted EBITDA and also taking strong action to improve our working capital. We demonstrated at the end of H1 that we have reduced the level of inventory to around 40,000 units from more than 22,000–23,000 units at the end of December. Of course, we are vigilant regarding receivables and are leveraging payables, including payables to related parties. We are on a good track to improve the level of cash burn, but unfortunately we are still burning more cash than planned because we have faced increases in tariffs and a more challenging market context, which has deteriorated our profitability. Regarding our funding needs, as you are aware, we raised USD 200 million of new equity from PSD Investments Company, which is owned by Mr. Li Shufu, Founder and Chairman of Geely Group. Following this new equity, we are working actively and with a positive mindset with Geely Group to further increase our funding because we cannot rely only on bank debt. We have to secure new equity as well. This new equity in June was a positive sign from Geely Group about supporting Polestar, and we expect further commitments to come. We are aligned with Geely Group on the liquidity and funding plan that we are executing. We will not hesitate to come back to the investment community if there is more to comment as and when required.

Andres Sheppard-Slinger, Analyst (Cantor)

Wonderful. That's very helpful. I appreciate all that color. And maybe one for Michael. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about autonomy. We're seeing a trend in the automotive business with different autonomous partnerships. Could you talk about opportunities that Polestar might be pursuing here? Is this an area of focus? Anything you can say?

Michael Lohscheller, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Yes, thanks, Andres. It's an important area because it's part of the future and it will grow. We already have various partners, for example Mobileye on the Polestar 4. We look at other alternatives in different regions. We want to strike a good balance because our brand stands for performance and our customers are generally performance drivers. But we can combine performance and higher levels of autonomy for times when customers don't want to drive. We also look carefully at overall group possibilities, and autonomy will remain a key focus area for the future. More to come on that.

Operator, Operator

There were no further questions at this time. I'll hand the call back to Michael for closing remarks.

Michael Lohscheller, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Yes. Thank you, everybody. This concludes our earnings call. Thank you for joining. Wish you a wonderful day, and keep in touch. Thank you, everybody.