ChargePoint Holdings Inc. shares plummeted in early trading after the corporate posted disappointing quarterly revenue and swapped out two of its top executives.
The electrical-vehicle charging company said revenue slumped to between $108 million and $113 million for the quarter that ended last month, down from a yr ago and well in need of its guidance for no less than $150 million. Pasquale Romano, who had been chief executive officer since 2011, and Chief Financial Officer Rex Jackson were replaced effective Thursday.
“Big changes we didn’t see coming,” Gabe Daoud, an equity analyst at TD Cowen who rates ChargePoint the equivalent of a buy, wrote in a report Thursday. “The EV charging space has endured significant headwinds this yr — evidenced by recent weak prints from other hardware/network providers — and despite being a pacesetter CHPT is just not immune.”
ChargePoint shares — which have already lost greater than two thirds of their value this yr — plunged as much as 34% before the beginning of normal trading Friday. The corporate’s market capitalization is headed below $1 billion from a peak of $11.2 billion in June 2021.
EV charging firms have struggled to compete with Tesla Inc., which has built out an unlimited network of plugs with a special connector design than the remainder of the US industry. The superior charging experience the EV manufacturer offers its customers has led just about all major automakers to modify to its connector as the brand new North American standard.
ChargePoint went public in 2021 by merging with a special purpose acquisition company as a part of a wave of EV-related deals that included Lordstown Motors Corp. and Lucid Group Inc. Investors have soured on a lot of these firms, a few of which were dangerous, early-stage ventures burning a lot of money.
Read More: Tesla’s Shrewdest Product Is Proving to Be Its Charging Network
ChargePoint promoted Rick Wilmer, who joined as chief operating officer in July of last yr, to switch Romano, who will remain an adviser. Jackson has left the corporate and might be replaced on an interim basis by Mansi Khetani, senior vice chairman of monetary planning and evaluation.
(Updates with analyst’s comment within the third paragraph.)
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