New York (CNN Business) Tesla posted its first annual profit, easily topping Wall Street's forecasts in the final three months of 2019.

Tesla has had only a handful of quarterly profits in its 10 years as a public company. On a strict accounting basis the company posted yet another loss for 2019. However, Tesla posted a $386 million profit in the final three months of 2019 using the operating basis followed by most analysts and investors. That left it with a narrow $35.8 million profit for the year.

"2019 was a turning point for Tesla," the company said in its statement.

The company said it should be able to continue to grow, with the opening of its Shanghai factory ahead of schedule and a new, lower priced SUV, the Model Y , on which the company recently started production. It expects the first limited deliveries of the Model Y later in this quarter.

It also plans to open a new factory near Berlin in 2021. It said it should "comfortably exceed" 500,000 cars sold this year, a 36% increase from its 2019 sales total.

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