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ChargePoint increased sales faster than expected.
Bing Guan/Bloomberg
ChargePoint
received a wave of good news. That raises the bar for the electric vehicle charging company’s quarterly reports numbers, which go out after the closing bell on Tuesday.
The shares of C
hargePoint
(ticker: CHPT ) have risen about 15% in the month since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, both Democrats, announced surprise deal – the Inflation Reduction Act – that advanced part of President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda, including tax credits for the purchase of electric cars. During these four weeks,
is about 2%.
More EVs mean more EV charging demand.
The new law isn’t the only good news for ChargePoint. California has moved to ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035. That’s faster than goals set by the federal government and automakers. Both want about half of cars sold to be fully electric by 2030. California’s 2030 goal is about 68 percent.
All of that good news means investors will expect a positive update from ChargePoint when it reports numbers for the second quarter of fiscal 2023 later Tuesday. The company is in fiscal 2023 because its year ends in January.
Wall Street expected a loss of 25 cents per share and $103 million in sales. A year ago, the company lost 13 cents per share and had $49 million in sales.
Sales at this point in ChargePoint’s history are more important than revenue. The company has managed to beat sales every quarter since it went public in 2021 through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
ChargePoint grew sales faster than it expected when the company proposed its merger with the SPAC. In late 2020, when ChargePoint announced its SPAC deal, the company expected to generate about $350 million in sales in the 2022 calendar year. The company expects to generate revenue for calendar year 2022 closer to $450 million.
However, higher sales revenue did not help the stock. The stock is still down about 30% over the past year, while the S&P 500 and
decrease by about 12% and 22% respectively.
Rising interest rates have dampened some of the investor enthusiasm for high-growth companies that are not yet generating earnings.
Options markets suggest ChargePoint shares will move about 7%, up or down, after earnings — slightly higher than the volatility seen since the last two quarterly reports.
ChargePoint Management Hosts a Conference Call at 4:30 PM ET to discuss the results.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]