Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the VinFast Auto Limited Q4 2024 and Full-Year Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I'd now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Nhi Nguyen. Please go ahead..
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. This is Nhi Nguyen from VinFast Investor Relations. Welcome to our fourth quarter earnings conference call. Joining me today are Chairwoman of the Board, Madam Thuy; and our CFO, Ms. Lan Anh Nguyen.
During the call, we will discuss our fourth quarter performance, business update, and present our outlook for 2025. After management remarks, we will have 30 minutes for Q&A, and we will also reference a slide deck today, which is accessible on the IR website.
Before I turn over to Madam Thuy, let me remind you that some of the statements on this call include forward-looking statements under Federal Securities Law. This includes without limitation statements regarding the future financial and operating outlook, guidance, macroeconomic, industry trends, company initiatives, and other future events.
These statements are based on the prediction and expectation as of today. Actual event or result may differ due to a number of risks and uncertainties. We refer you to the cautionary language and the risk factor in our most recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In addition, management will refer to non-GAAP financials during this call. A discussion of why we use non-GAAP and information regarding the reconciliation of our non-GAAP versus GAAP is available in the press release that we issued this morning. You can also find it in our slide deck.
And with that, I would like to invite Madam Thuy to start with management remarks..
to make EV accessible to everyone with multiple brand segments to serve various use cases. Next, capacity. With the new CKD facilities coming on in 2025, we are effectively adding capacity of up to 300,000 vehicles per year to our total design capacity, well mapped with our focused market. Finally, market reach.
Expansion in Asia will continue to be our top priority for 2025. At the same time, we will continue our strategic expansion of our dealer network in other regions and evaluate the local demand environment to determine which new models to introduce.
Our 2025 guidance reflects a strong confidence in our ability to grow market share in Vietnam and expand internationally, especially in Asia, which remains central to our long-term growth strategy. To support this, we have taken proactive steps to localize manufacturing and build strong partnership with local dealers.
These efforts help us better navigate different regulatory environments and operate more effectively in diverse markets. Southeast Asia continues to attract attention from global automakers, but one of the things that set VinFast apart is our ecosystem approach.
By integrating services across our green mobility network, we are creating a strong foundation for long-term EV adoption and building lasting brand value. With that, I will hand it over to Lan Anh to discuss our financial results and outlook..
Thank you, Madam Thuy. Despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, VinFast concluded 2024 with strong operational momentum, laying a foundation for further growth in 2025. As a general and dynamic EV manufacturer, we need to focus on continued innovation to build better quality and better performance vehicles.
At the same time, we are streamlining our operations and managing costs carefully to support our revenue growth and progress towards profitability. To support our Asia growth, we plan to strategically deploy capital into three new CKD plants that are scheduled to begin operation in 2025, further strengthening our production flexibility.
Now let me recap our 2024 performance. Revenue for the Q4 2024 was $678 million up by 34% quarter-over-quarter and 70% year-over-year. Full year revenue was $1.8 billion increased by 58% year-over-year. Cost of goods sold in Q4 2024 was $1.2 billion increased by 93% quarter-over-quarter as volumes ramped up significantly.
Full year cost of goods sold were $2.8 billion which increased by 67% versus 2023. Q4 2024 gross margin was minus 79% versus minus 24% in Q3. The pressure on this quarter's gross margin was due to an accounting charge that we booked in relation to the free charging program in Vietnam.
[Indiscernible] is responsible for paying the cost to implement the program for the EVs sold on or before December 31 of 2024. The estimated amount to be paid directly by farm for the entire free charging period is approximately $242 million.
This amount is recognized as a revenue reduction and a deemed contribution to the owner in our financial statements for fiscal year 2024. Therefore, we need to book an adjustment on revenue corresponding to the charging benefits of own EV sold on or before December 31, 2024.
If we remove for the impact of the free charging program and NRE, Q4 2024 gross profit margin was flat quarter-over-quarter and saw an improvement from minus 35% from a year prior to minus 26%. 2024 gross margin loss was minus 57% compared to the minus 49% in 2023.
Again, if we adjust for the impact of the free charging program and NAV, full year gross margin saw an improvement from minus 40% in 2023 to minus 32% in 2024. To elaborate on improved efficiency, in Q4 2024, we continued to see average unit bond and production costs for EVs declined by 16% and 43% respectively.
For 2024, average unit bond and production cost for EV declined by 34% and 50% year-over-year respectively. Some of our high volume models is excluding NRE, depreciation and amortization and free charging expenses are now achieving positive gross profit reflecting the benefits of scale and bond optimization. Moving to operating expenses.
Q4 2024 SG&A expense was $268 million up by 89% quarter-over-quarter and by 108% year-over-year. For the full-year 2024, SG&A was $694 million up by 50% year-over-year.
The increase in SG&A compared to Q3 is primarily attributable to our efforts to scale our sales operation globally and the impairment charge to battery production lines due to business adjustments. If we exclude the impact of the impairments and some one-off items during Q4 2024, SG&A as a percentage of revenue declined to 19% from 26% in Q3.
For the R&D, Q4 2024 R&D spend was $110 million up by 28% quarter-over-quarter and decreased by 15% year-over-year. For the full-year 2024, R&D spend was $412 million decreased by 35% year-over-year.
The decrease over the Q4 2023 was primarily due to the reduction in engineering and development costs as we completed the majority of the product development work in our existing models. The increase over the Q3 2024 was primarily due to the introduction of the existing model to for real market.
For EBITDA and bottom line, Q4 2024 EBITDA loss is minus $928 million. The EBITDA losses widened in line with the increased sales volume in Q4 2024. Full-year 2024 net loss was minus $3.2 billion, if we exclude the impact of free charging program, NAV and impairment of assets, net loss margin improved to minus 128% in 2024 from minus 203% in 2023.
For cash burn, Q4 2024 CapEx is $251 million 93% higher than Q3 due to CapEx on our facilities. However, full-year CapEx was $686 million, which decreased by 32% year-over-year.
Our cash burn significantly improved in 2024 decreased by 39% year-over-year to $1.9 billion reflecting our discipline in cost and capital management, among which cash burn from operating activities was only $1.25 billion compared to $2.1 billion in 2023.
When it comes to quality of cash flows management, our cash burn in 2024 is equivalent to 104% of revenue compared to 267% in 2023. As stated earlier, we expect to continue investing in R&D and CapEx in 2025 as we continue to improve customer experience and innovation. This would be partially offset by cost savings in other areas.
At the same time, we will continue making progress towards profitability by scaling our top line growth and further cost savings. Turn to our liquidity position. Last November, we announced a capital support package from our Founder Mr. Pham and Vingroup through a combination of grants and loans.
By 31st of December 2024, we had received approximately $800 million by 31 March, 2025 total disbursements has exceeded $1.5 billion strengthening our balance sheet and runway. In addition to the commitments dispersed from Mr. Pham and Vingroup, VinFast has access to nearly $1 billion of liquidity including an LO facility.
As of 31st of March 2025 VinFast liquidity position stood at approximately $3 billion, this includes a $968 million LO facility around $1.9 billion in funding from our Founder and loans from Vingroup.
While we continue to be supported by our Founder and corporate parent, we are evaluating capital markets opportunities to diversify our funding sources. Lastly, an update on the profitability perspective. 2024 marked a meaningful progress in our scaling journey and operational discipline.
In 2025, we are focused on scaling volume through new products launch and deepening our market presence in Asia. At the same time, we are executing against clear levels for BOM optimization, manufacturing efficiency, and strategic capital deployment to drive margin improvement and move towards full-year EBITDA profitability.
Operator, let's now open for Q&A..
Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. We will now take the first question from the line of Andres Sheppard from Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead..
Hi, everyone. Good morning or good evening and thank you so much for taking our questions and congratulations on the quarter. Hey, just a first question is, so you're reaffirming your guidance for 2025 for now.
I guess, what gives you confidence in your guidance so far just given all of the macro conditions? And how should we think about deliveries for '25 in terms of Vietnam versus other markets like India, Indonesia? What kind of breakdown should we be thinking about? Thank you..
Hi, Andres. How are you doing? Thank you for the question. So in terms of the confidence for the guidance, we -- very similar to 2024, we expect that Q1 is going to be the slowest quarter. So we announced about 35,000 deliveries in Vietnam in Q1.
Then we expect some uptick in Q2 as two of the new green models, will start delivering towards the end of the quarter. And then, the bulk of the 45,000 green non-cancelable preorders that we just received, we start hitting in the second half of the year. So, overall, we think that the first half contribution will be approximately 25%, 30%.
And then we will see most of the rest of the deliveries in the second half of the year with Q4 again being the strongest quarter. So we see a good result from the orders for the green series in 2025.
And in the first quarter this year, we already exceeded the first half of last year, and we continue building the momentum in Vietnam and in other markets. So basically, I mean, looking at Vietnam and other markets, we have confidence that we should be able to deliver at least double what we did last year.
In terms of the breakdown between Vietnam and other markets, we expect that other markets will contribute more than 10% similarly to last year. Yes, so we Indonesia -- and we expect Indonesia, Asia market, Indonesia, Philippines, and India will contribute quite significantly this year. Thank you..
Wonderful. Thanks, Madam Thuy. That's super helpful and super thorough. Really appreciate it. Just one last question. Just on gross margins.
Can you remind us the path to positive gross margins? It seems like most sales for this year will probably be the VF 3 and VF 5 again so with lower ASPs, how should we think about the path to positive gross margins? Thank you..
Yes. I'll pass it that to Lan Anh..
Yes, as for the gross profit margin, actually 2024, we mark significant progress in our scale strategic execution, and it's an encouragement to our path to profitability. VinFast also ended the year with strong momentum, having more like a double quarterly revenue year-over-year.
So excluding the NRV and one-off accounting charges, we have narrowed our full-year gross loss margin to minus 32% from minus 40% in 2023. So, in 2025, we are focused on the scaling column through the new product launches and deepening our market presence in Asia.
At the same time that we are executing against clear levels, for home optimization, manufacturing efficiency, and strategic capital deployment to drive margin improvement and move towards the full-year EBITDA profitability. Yes..
Perfect. Thank you so much again and congratulations on the quarter. I'll pass it on..
Thank you..
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Greg Lewis from BTIG LLC. Please go ahead..
Yes, hi. Thank you and good evening and good afternoon, good morning everybody. I was hoping to understand a little bit better the accounting treatment or how you're realizing the EV charging credit.
It sounds, yes, if you could just walk us through like how much we realize at the point of sale and then is that something that since the charging is in place for a couple of years, it's realized over the life of the three year window?.
So for the free charging program, actually, during the Q4 2024 we had the one-time charge was recognized in the Q4 to account for the free charging expenses for the old EV that we sold on or before the 31 December, 2024. So you can see that we recognize $242 million kind of the deduction in the revenue, is in line with the U.S.
GAAP accounting treatment that we need to deduct to the revenue. And because Mr. Pham, our Founder is responsible for this charging expense, but we increase for the deal contribution from the shareholder. So that's why you do see the onetime charge, a big amount in the Q4 2024.
Going forward, it's expected that this call is going to be recognized in line with the corresponding vehicle sales, for the duration of the free charging program that we are offering to customer. Currently under our sales policy, the free charging program is going to be ended on 31st of December of 2027..
Okay. Great. And then when we think about ASPs and mix, I mean, I guess the focus is going to be on the VF 3 and VF 5.
So how should we think about the ASPs trending for the rest of the year? How are you guys thinking about that on pricing?.
Yes, yes, you are correct that actually with the increasing of the VF 3, VF 5 heavily is our mix in Q4. So ASP is around $16,000 per car. It's the average, kind of the average in Q4, that compared to the around $20,700 in the Q3. This election for the decline of the over 22% in ASP. So also they driven primarily by the VP 3, VP 5.
And in overall in 2024, the ASP is around 19,300 per car. In spite that we see the ASP in the low range during the early adoption stage, aware customer, tend to prefer small cars, low price tag to explore and experience. However, the ASP is only one part of the equation. The other part is unit growth.
So our objective to introduce more affordable models is to capture possibly underserved cohort of the consumer that's the prioritized value, in both the dollar terms, but also the environment impact. So, ultimately, strong unit growth should offset the ASP decline and lead to sustainable revenue growth..
Okay. Super helpful. Thank you for taking my questions..
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of James McIlree from Chardan Capital Markets. Please go ahead..
Yes. Thank you.
When we look at capital spending for 2025 and 2026, are the amounts that you've budgeted similar to what you spent in 2024 or significantly higher or lower?.
So you referred to the investment, so we can like answer into our cash burn that's, I just like a hefty number that in 2024 we have the cash burn $1.9 million. And we expect that in 2025, approximately around $2.5 billion. Out of that, we expect to spend $1.8 billion for the CapEx and R&D. And the CapEx in here is for our CKD facilities across Asia.
And that we expect to be operational in 2025. And for the R&D around most CapEx and OpEx is around $700 million or $750 million..
And so the cash burn from operation is reducing?.
The cash burn for the operation is around $800 million to $900 million. Yes. Slightly reduced versus last year..
Thank you.
And secondly, when we evaluate the share of sales coming from the VF 3 and VF 5 in 2025, is that going to be approximately similar to what it was in Q4 of 2024?.
Please stand by. Your conference will resume shortly..
I think it's less than 50% because we have the green coming in as well. To less than Q4 last year, change..
Okay. I hate to do this to you, but the conference blanked out for during your answer. So if you can just summarize the answer. Sorry about that..
The percentage of VF 3 and VF 5, this year is expected to be less than 50% and which is less than Q4 last year. But we also we're adding the green series this year, so that would account for almost a quarter of the deliveries for this year as well..
Very good. Thank you so much..
Thank you..
Thank you. There are no further questions at the phone at this time. I would like to hand over for any webcast questions now..
Thank you, operator, and thank you, Madam Thuy. We have the first question from the webcast. What is the target to at least double volumes in 2025. What percentage do you expect international markets to contribute? I think this, we have already addressed this, so let's move on to the next one.
With the recent announcement of shifting focus and not boosting U.S., Canada, Europe sales, what does that mean to the current owners, dealerships and service centers? What is the update on the routine, NHTSA investigation?.
Okay. Let me take it. So the first question is about the reactions to the U.S., Canada, and Europe sales. So our dealers in the market remain strategic partners and continue to play a vital role in our growth and market execution. So across all the markets, we are transitioning toward a dealership model to enhance the efficiency and scale.
This shift enables cost optimization for us while expanding our reach faster, particularly in a high potential region where demand pipeline remains strong. So, while the recent headlines have prompted increased caution among some of the dealers, the sentiment remains quite constructive in Asian markets as we build brand momentum.
We have proactively aligned supply with demand, accelerating shipments ahead of tariff implementation in the U.S. to ensure dealer delivery is well positioned through the summer season as well. So far so good as we manage the relationship well with the strategic partners.
On your second question about the, NHTSA routine investigation, so as we have repeated many times, safety is an important aspect to us, and we are cooperating with investigation by NHTSA, as we have always been in the past. NHTSA generally does not close this type investigation.
They take no further action so long as the impact continued to honor its commitment in terms of the settlement. So, we continue cooperating with them. So far, no feedback for the past few months..
Thank you, Madam Thuy. We have the next question from the floor.
What is the current status and projected plans for the USA manufacturing plant in North Carolina?.
Thank you. So the U.S. remains one of our key markets and we are committed to it for the long-term. This is reflected in the fact that we have made no changes to our plan to have a North Carolina facility by 2028. We will continue monitoring the macroeconomics and geopolitical developments and revise our plan if needed.
With the current market backdrop has also provided us with an appropriate window to adjust our execution focus. So we are also focused on fostering dealer performance and also expanding our dealer pipeline across the U.S.
We thank our dealers for their cooperation and support and continue to have meaningful dialogue as we work together through the macro uncertainty. So thanks. We really thank them for that..
Thank you, Madam Thuy. We have the next question from the floor.
How is the expansion into Indonesia and the Philippines progressing?.
Very well for both markets. Actually, I'm very, very pleased with the progress in both markets. For Indonesia, we started delivering VF 3, VF 5 and VF e34. We have about -- we deliver about 3,000 VF e34 for GSM and about 500 vehicles for B2C customers in the market.
Indonesia is the first VinFast overseas market outside of Vietnam, where we implement the whole full green mobility ecosystem, which, means the GSM for the green taxi and V-Green for charging station. We launched, GSM in Jakarta last year and end of last year, and we started expanding the V-Green charging network in Indonesia.
Our dealership network consisted of 22 showrooms as of March 31, 2025 and we are on track with our target to have about 80 showrooms by the end of the year as we continue expanding our relationship with the dealers. About Philippines, we have introduced five models in The Philippines, with the VF6 being the latest one to be introduced.
We also started expanding our dealership network and service center. We have six showrooms by the end of March and aim to have 50 showrooms by the end of the year. And V-Green, the charging station network is already present in The Philippines, and we expect to see GSM taxi in The Philippines soon as well..
Thank you, Madam Thuy. We have our next question is about tariff. What is your view on the potential impact of the new U.S. tariff on consumer car spending both in Vietnam and in your key international markets.
How is VinFast preparing to respond for each market, and what forms of government support are you expecting?.
The government support in Vietnam are okay. In Vietnam. It's from the analyst in Vietnam. Okay. So I guess the tariff, reciprocal tariff is the most popular keyword these days.
I think we are closely monitoring and believe that at this stage, it remains premature to determine the final trajectory of the tariff as further developments and influencing factors are yet to unfold.
We have proactively brought in inventory of model year '25 vehicles to North America, which are unaffected by the new tariffs, and we have sufficient inventory in the interim. In 2024, the U.S. accounted for only 4% of total deliveries, And so we believe that the impact of the U.S.
tariff on automotive I mean we impacted only by automotive tariff for now not the reciprocal one. So we expect that the impact of the U.S. automotive tariffs on us is less superior compared to other OEMs with heavy reliance on the U.S. market.
Our 2025 guidance announced in February or it took into account potential, political and economic uncertainties in the U.S. And it is important to highlight that majority of our growth in 2025 is expected to be from non-U.S. markets.
We don't expect government support in Vietnam, even though I think in Vietnam, we do have, like some waiver of some registration fee, but we don't expect at least it's not in our projection to have any government support in any meaningful way..
Thank you, Madam Thuy. We have the next question from the line. In the past, VinFast had talked about battery leasing as a unique differentiator of your market entry.
Can you explain the rationale to discontinue this offering?.
Okay. I talked about it a little bit in my earlier speech. So battery leasing play a vital early role in the early days of EV adoption, as it really have narrowed the price gap between internal combustion engine vehicles and EVs.
But as the consumer familiarity with EVs growth, battery leasing as a percentage of sales has dropped for us from 80% at the beginning to about below 30% recently. So, it's the right time for us to drop the battery leasing. And to ease the transition, we extended free charging benefits to the customer.
So six months for EV owners and one year for e-scooter owners through 2027..
Thank you, Madam Thuy. We have the last question from the line.
Can you remind us, what VinFast's key priorities for 2025 and how that aligns with your go-to-market strategy? And what are you most excited about for VinFast over the next 24 months?.
So the priorities for us in 2025, first of all, solidifying the leadership position in Vietnam and continuing to build brand awareness and strengthening performance and presence in new markets. Secondly, to employ enhanced CapEx manufacturing to support business growth. We're opening three more factory this year.
And then finally, driving product innovation through segmentation and again focus on cost optimization. So our go-to-market strategy is built around three pillars, our products, our manufacturing, capacity and market reach. And these are all aligned with our 2025 priorities and long-term goals.
Well, what's exciting about I mean, exciting development of infrastructures. On engineering front, we wouldn't be launching new vehicle platforms this year to simplify and increase platform commonalities across the models.
So this will internally to more cost savings, and we are also working hard on new technologies, and we'll share more details with you later. So all in all, the path ahead of us is very clear. I'm very excited about the future of VinFast..
Thank you, Madam Thuy. I think we're coming up to the one hour mark, and thank you everyone again for joining us today. If you need any further clarification, please let us know by sending an email to IR@vinfastauto.com. Take care and goodbye..
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect..