12:19 PM EDT, 04/02/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Tesla (TSLA) first-quarter vehicle deliveries missed analysts' expectations and decreased both on a sequential and annual bases, partially impacted by factory shutdowns.

The company said Tuesday it delivered 386,810 vehicles for the March quarter, compared with projections on Visible Alpha for about 454,200 units. It produced 433,371 vehicles during the three-month period, lower than the forecast for 462,100 units.

The company's stock was down 5.3% in midday trading.

In the previous three-month period, Tesla delivered and produced 484,507 and 494,989 vehicles, respectively. In the first quarter of 2023, the automaker delivered 422,875 units with production of 440,808 vehicles.

"Decline in volumes was partially due to the early phase of the production ramp of the updated Model 3 at our Fremont factory and factory shutdowns resulting from shipping diversions caused by the Red Sea conflict and an arson attack at Gigafactory Berlin," Tesla said in a statement.

The company reported 369,783 deliveries of the Model 3 and Model Y during the quarter, down on a quarterly and yearly basis.

"While we were anticipating a bad (first quarter), this was an unmitigated disaster (first-quarter) that is hard to explain away," Wedbush Securities said in a Tuesday client note. Demand from the key Chinese market remained "very soft," while supply issues weighed on production, according to the brokerage.

"We view this as a seminal moment in the Tesla story for (Chief Executive Elon Musk) to either turn this around and reverse the black eye (first-quarter) performance," analysts led by Daniel Ives wrote in the note. "Otherwise, some darker days could clearly be ahead that could disrupt the long-term Tesla narrative."

Wedbush maintained its outperform rating on Tesla.

Among Chinese competitors, Li Auto (LI) reported on Monday that it delivered 80,400 vehicles for the first quarter, rising 53% year-on-year. Nio's (NIO) first-quarter deliveries came in at 30,053 units, just above its own expectations, while XPeng's (XPEV) deliveries jumped 20% to 21,821 vehicles.

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