• EVgo reported fourth-quarter revenue that beat Wall Street estimates, and a narrower loss than expected, as demand for chargers from business clients boomed.
• The company's 2023 revenue guidance was slightly short of expectations.
• EVgo isn't yet sure how many U.S.-made chargers it'll be able to get by year end.

EV charging network operator EVgo on Thursday reported fourth-quarter revenue that beat Wall Street expectations and posted a narrower-than-expected loss as booming demand from business clients drove big jumps in sales and usage.

While EVgo's revenue guidance for 2023 fell slightly short of Wall Street's expectations, investors didn't seem to mind: The company's shares were up over 20% in early trading following the news.

Here are the key numbers from EVgo's fourth-quarter earnings report, compared with Wall Street consensus estimates as reported by Refinitiv.

• Loss per share: 6 cents, versus a loss of 16 cents expected.
• Revenue: $27.3 million, versus $21.8 million expected.

EVgo's fourth-quarter revenue marked a 283% increase from a year ago. The company's net loss for the quarter was $17 million. For Q4 2021, revenue was $7.1 million and it had a loss of $46.3 million or 18 cents per share. EVgo had $246.2 million in cash and equivalents remaining at year-end, down from $484.9 million at the end of 2021.

For the full year, EVgo reported revenue of $54.6 million, network throughput of 44.6 gigawatt-hours (GWh) and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $80.2 million, all in line with the guidance ranges it provided with its third-quarter results in November. The full-year revenue was up 146% from the previous year, the network throughput rose 69% and the loss was wider.

EVgo's network throughput, a measure of the total energy provided to charging customers, grew 76% year over year to 14.4 GWh in the fourth quarter. The company added about 59,000 new customer accounts during the period, and ended the year with more than 2,800 fast charging stalls in operation.

The company saw dramatic growth in its "eXtend" unit, which provides and manages chargers for business clients under the businesses' own brands. Revenue from eXtend totaled about $16.7 million in the fourth quarter, or 61% of EVgo's total revenue for the period, up from just $114,000 a year ago. General Motors, truck-stop operator Pilot and banking giant Chase are among the businesses that have signed up for the eXtend program.

Retail charging revenue totaled $5.8 million in the quarter, up 65% from a year ago.

EVgo's guidance for 2023 came with a caveat: The company isn't yet sure how many U.S.-made chargers it'll be able to get by year-end. New U.S. government rules require domestically made chargers for certain federally funded projects, and it's not yet clear how much domestic manufacturing capacity will be up and running before the end of the year.

Here's the guidance EVgo provided for the current year:

• Revenue: Between $105 million and $150 million.
• Adjusted EBITDA loss: Between $78 million and $60 million
• Fast charging stalls in operation or under construction: 3,400 to 4,000 by year-end.

That revenue guidance is slightly short of Wall Street's expectations. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected 2023 revenue to reach $153.7 million, on average.