Li Auto Posts 21.5 Billion Yuan Revenue as Barclays Share Price Focus Sharpens
Li Auto’s barclays share price focus sharpened after it reported first-quarter 2026 automotive sales revenue of 21.5 billion yuan and a 6.1% car gross margin. The average selling price fell to 226,000 yuan, showing that lower pricing, not just higher volumes, drove the quarter’s softer economics.
May 28th report
21.5 billion yuan in automotive sales revenue came alongside about 23 billion yuan in total revenue, which was down 11.4% year on year. Li Auto released the report on the evening of May 28th, Beijing time, after the Hong Kong stock market closed and before the U.S. stock market opened, putting the numbers directly into the next trading sessions.
226,000 yuan was the average selling price in the quarter, about 24,000 yuan below the prior period and below the 234,000 yuan market expectation. That gap reflects the mix shift toward lower-priced vehicles rather than a simple volume story, with the pure-electric i6 continuing to draw demand.
i6 and Mega mix
60% was the i6’s share of the mix, up from the previous quarter, while the high-priced Mega model fell to about 1.4%. Li Auto also kept pressing discounts on its L-series core models, cutting roughly 36,000 yuan on the L6, 45,000 yuan on the L7 and L8, and 50,000 yuan on the L9.
6.1% was the actual automotive gross profit margin, down 10.7 percentage points from 16.8% in the previous quarter and above the roughly 5% consensus expectation. The margin pressure came even as the company had already signaled a weaker trend, with the deeper discounts and heavier mix of lower-priced models reducing pricing power across the quarter.
213,000 yuan cost base
213,000 yuan was the cost per vehicle, up 5,000 yuan from the previous quarter, while sales volume fell 13%. Upstream storage chip prices and bulk raw materials also rose, and those cost increases were said to have a 3 percentage point drag on the i6’s gross profit margin.
15,000 yuan of purchase tax subsidy for the i6 cushioned demand, but it did not stop the average price from slipping or the margin from resetting lower. For Li Auto, the first quarter leaves the business with a narrower spread between price and cost, and with the car mix leaning harder toward the model that is selling most quickly rather than the one that carries the highest price.
