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Author | Chai Xuchen
Editor | Zhou Zhiyu
In the ongoing elimination competition of new energy vehicles that has lasted for several years, Nio has always been the most controversial player. Supporters believe that Nio is the closest &#34;luxury brand&#34; among Chinese new energy vehicle companies; skeptics have always focused on one question—when will it be profitable?
On March 10, with Nio releasing its financial report for the fourth quarter and the whole year of 2025, this debate finally reached a phased answer.
The financial report shows that Nio achieved an operating profit of 1.25 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2025, marking the first time in history that it achieved quarterly profitability. At the same time, the company's cash reserves reached 45.9 billion yuan in the fourth quarter, an increase of nearly 10 billion yuan compared to the previous quarter.
This means that after nearly a decade of investment and expansion, Nio has finally crossed a critical threshold. After the U.S. stock market opened, Nio's stock surged by more than 10 percentage points at one point.
Li Bin has repeatedly stated publicly that Nio will definitely achieve profitability in a certain quarter. Now this promise has been fulfilled. However, whether this quarterly profit is a fleeting moment or a complete turnaround of Li Bin's business model will be determined by Nio's future performance.
<h2>From &#34;Burning Money Company&#34; to Profit Turning Point</h2>
In recent years, the biggest question from the capital market regarding Nio has been: can this model achieve scalable profitability? The financial report for the fourth quarter of 2025, to some extent, provides an answer.
The financial report shows that Nio delivered 124,807 vehicles in the fourth quarter, a year-on-year increase of 71.7% and a quarter-on-quarter increase of 43.3%, setting a new historical high. At the same time, the company's quarterly revenue reached 34.65 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 75.9%.
While sales and revenue both reached new highs, profitability is also improving. The company's comprehensive gross margin in the fourth quarter reached 17.5%, an increase of 5.8 percentage points year-on-year; the gross margin for complete vehicles reached 18.1%, the highest in three years.
The continuous rebound in gross margin is an important reason why Nio can achieve profitability.
On the other hand, Nio's non-vehicle business has also begun to contribute profits. The financial report shows that the gross margin for other sales in the fourth quarter reached 11.9%, and related businesses have achieved profitability for three consecutive quarters.
From a business structure perspective, Nio is gradually forming a diversified profit model of &#34;vehicle sales + service ecosystem.&#34; This means that the service and community system, which was previously seen as a cost center, is gradually transforming into a source of profit.
Behind the profitability is the rapid expansion of scale.
In 2025, Nio delivered a total of 326,028 new vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 46.9%, setting a historical record. The annual revenue reached 87.49 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.1%; at the same time, the total gross profit reached 11.92 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 83.5%.
This set of data indicates that Nio has begun to enter a scale-driven phase
In the new energy vehicle industry, economies of scale are crucial. Whether it's research and development costs, supply chain costs, or channel expenses, companies can only truly unleash their profitability once sales reach a certain scale.
From this perspective, Nio achieving quarterly profitability is more like the arrival of a &#34;scale critical point.&#34;
This trend is continuing. Nio's guidance for the first quarter of 2026 indicates that the company expects to deliver between 80,000 and 83,000 units, representing a year-on-year increase of over 90%; revenue is expected to reach between 24.48 billion and 25.18 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of over 100%.
If this growth pace can be sustained, Nio's annual sales are expected to further break through.
<h2>A New Growth Cycle</h2>
During the earnings call, Li Bin divided Nio's development stages into three periods.
The first stage is the company's founding and technology accumulation phase; the second stage is the scale expansion phase; and with the realization of quarterly profitability, Nio has officially entered the third stage—high-quality growth phase.
If the keyword for Nio in the past few years was &#34;investment,&#34; the next keyword may shift to &#34;efficiency.&#34;
In fact, Nio has been undergoing internal efficiency reforms in recent years, including supply chain optimization, platform-based R&amp;D, and sales network integration. The effects of these measures are gradually reflected in the financial data.
Nio's CFO, Qu Yu, stated during the earnings call for the fourth quarter of 2025 and the full year that the company will maintain quarterly R&amp;D investments of 2 billion to 2.5 billion yuan in 2026, and will continue to enhance R&amp;D efficiency based on the CBU operating mechanism, avoiding ineffective investments and improving R&amp;D output under the same investment.
At the same time, the company will dynamically adjust the pace and investment of R&amp;D based on the operational situation and ROI mechanism in 2026, ensuring the intensity of investment in key products and core technologies, thereby promoting the long-term competitiveness of the company.
On the market side, changes are also occurring in the new energy vehicle industry. Li Bin mentioned during the call that although the overall Chinese passenger car market still faces challenges in the first quarter of this year, the growth of pure electric models remains very strong.
In the past year, the growth of China's new energy vehicle market has been primarily driven by pure electric models. In this trend, Nio, as a pure electric brand, still has certain market space. During the earnings meeting, Li Bin expressed confidence in achieving a 40% to 50% sales growth for the year.
Based on this calculation, Nio needs to achieve total sales of 450,000 to 490,000 units this year, averaging about 40,000 units per month. This poses a significant challenge for Nio. In the first two months of this year, Nio delivered nearly 48,000 new vehicles in total, averaging about 20,000 units per month, which is half of the monthly target. The underlying issue is the current imbalance in the sales structure of Nio's models.
The ES8 has become the main model delivered by Nio in the first two months, accounting for over half of the total deliveries, while models like the ES6 and ET5, which were originally expected to drive volume, have not been able to perform adequately during this period.
Industry insiders believe that this sales structure can boost profit performance in the short term, but will restrict total sales growth in the long term. However, Li Bin is not worried about this
<h2>Three Brand Strategy Begins to Gain Momentum</h2>
During the earnings call, Li Bin stated that this year Nio will accelerate its penetration into more prefecture-level cities through the joint SKY store system of its three brands. The core of this strategy is to share the sales and service network while maintaining differentiated brand positioning. This not only reduces channel costs but also enhances sales efficiency.
On the product front, Nio will also enter an intensive product cycle this year.
According to official plans, Nio, Lantu, and Firefly will launch a total of 10 new or updated models by 2026. With nearly a quarter of 2026 already passed and less than 10 months remaining, Nio is expected to launch an average of one new car per month, which can be described as a &#34;sea of cars&#34; strategy.
This means that Nio is no longer fixated on premium blockbuster models but aims to achieve comprehensive coverage of different price points, market segments, and user groups through intensive product launches. In doing so, Nio will maintain its high-end base while competing for the mass market, achieving breakthroughs in both sales and profits.
It is noteworthy that most of these products are concentrated in the large five-seater and large three-row SUV market. Li Bin believes that this sub-market is entering a &#34;golden age&#34; for pure electric models. Data shows that since September 2025, sales of pure electric large three-row SUVs have led all power types for five consecutive months.
In the second half of 2025, sales in this sub-market grew by over 350% year-on-year. Against this trend, Nio's product layout clearly has a certain foresight.
In addition to aggressive product launches, Nio will also make significant investments in battery swap infrastructure.
This year, Nio plans to build 1,000 new battery swap stations, expanding the total to 4,700. More importantly, Nio has finally begun to integrate the underlying infrastructure of its three brands: the first fifth-generation battery swap station compatible with Nio, Lantu, and Firefly will start pilot testing in March, with large-scale deployment in the second quarter.
Once the fifth-generation stations are fully rolled out, the three brands will share the battery swap network, significantly improving the utilization rate of the swap stations, reducing the operating costs of each station, and allowing Lantu and Firefly to truly benefit from the core barriers of the Nio ecosystem, fully leveraging their selling points.
<h2>Li Bin's &#34;Long-Term Bet&#34;</h2>
On the same day the earnings report was released, Nio's board also approved a new long-term incentive plan.
According to the plan, the company will grant Li Bin approximately 248 million restricted shares, but the vesting conditions of these shares are directly linked to the company's market value and net profit.
Specifically, when Nio's market value surpasses $30 billion, $50 billion, $80 billion, $100 billion, and $120 billion, the shares will vest in batches; at the same time, the company's net profit must reach $1.5 billion, $2.5 billion, $4 billion, $5 billion, and $6 billion, respectively.
Only when the market value exceeds $120 billion and net profit exceeds $6 billion will all incentive shares finally vest.
This is essentially a &#34;long-term bet&#34; lasting over a decade. Analysts believe that such an incentive mechanism deeply ties the CEO's personal gains to the company's long-term value, with highly challenging goals
In other words, Nio not only aims to achieve profitability but also to continuously expand its scale and establish stronger competitiveness in the global market. At the earnings conference, Qin Lihong set a flag: Nio strives to achieve Non-GAAP annual profitability by 2026.
<h2>A New Starting Point</h2>
For Nio, quarterly profitability is certainly important, but it is more like a starting point rather than an endpoint.
The Chinese new energy vehicle market is entering a more intense competitive phase. Price wars, technological iterations, and channel competition are all intensifying. In such an environment, a single profit cannot determine a company's long-term fate.
But at least, Nio has proven one thing: its long-standing technological route and business model are not unsustainable. When a company that has long been questioned for &#34;only burning money&#34; finally starts to make a profit, the market narrative will change accordingly.
Li Bin did not break his promise. The real question is—after crossing the profitability threshold, can Nio turn this profit into a long-term stable business model? This is what the capital market is most concerned about next.
Risk Warning and Disclaimer
The market has risks, and investment requires caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account the specific investment goals, financial situation, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article align with their specific circumstances. Investing based on this is at their own risk

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Nio finally achieved quarterly profitability in the fourth quarter of 2025 after ten years of burning cash, with an operating profit of 1.25 billion yuan and cash reserves of 45.9 billion yuan. In the fourth quarter, deliveries reached 124,807 units, a year-on-year increase of 71.7%, with revenue of 34.65 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 75.9%. The gross margin continued to rise, with the vehicle gross margin reaching 18.1%. Nio is gradually forming a diversified profit model of "vehicle sales + service ecosystem," marking a transformation in its business model

After ten years of burning money, Nio has started to make a profit