Chinese electric-vehicle maker XPeng had a weak start to 2026, slipping back to a loss in the first quarter after becoming profitable at the end of last year.

XPeng rose 5.78% in pre-market trading, trading at $17.40/share.

The company, one of the leading emerging EV brands in China, struggled to maintain its sales momentum, weighed by a sector-wide slowdown in the world's largest car market. Deliveries fell by about a third in the first three months of the year, snapping a run of record sales.

The Guangzhou-based automaker said Thursday that its net loss was 1.78 billion yuan, equivalent to $262.6 million, widening from 664.0 million yuan a year earlier. Revenue dropped 18% to 13.03 billion yuan, weighed by lower vehicle sales during the period, it said.

Analysts had expected a net loss of 811.9 million yuan on revenue of 13.55 billion yuan, according to a Visible Alpha poll.

XPeng's gross margin climbed to 20.6% from 15.6% a year earlier. Vehicle margins improved to 12.1%, thanks to cost reductions and a better product mix, the company said.

For the second quarter, XPeng said it expects deliveries of between 100,000 and 106,000 vehicles and revenue to grow to between 19.60 billion yuan and 20.80 billion yuan.