Aston Martin’s losses narrowed in the third quarter, beating analyst forecasts as the luxury automaker shipped more cars and “pro-actively” managed ongoing supply chain issues.
Pre-tax loss narrowed by 90% to £12.2 million in the third quarter, while wholesale volumes came in at 1,641, up 14% year-on-year.
However, total wholesale volumes for the year-to-date are 17% down on 2023, standing at 3,639, which it put down to a transition to a new range of models including its Vantage and DBX707 models.
Aston Martin, famous for making fictional spy James Bond’s cars, is also trying to manage supply chain issues which it warned last month would hit annual production by about 1,000 fewer cars.
Meanwhile, it has also been battling a “weak macroeconomic environment” in the key Chinese market. A recent downward trend in Chinese sales continued in the most recent quarter, with year-to-date volumes falling 54% compared with the same point in 2023.
Since Aston Martin was bought by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll in 2020, it has pushed on with a swathe of new model launches in a bid to turn its ailing fortunes around.
It recently appointed a new chief executive, Adrian Hallmark, who joined in September amid a ramping up of sales of its new Vantage and DBX707 models, which it said helped boost production volumes.
The company is also set to introduce its new V12 Vanquish model imminently, which alongside the other new cars is expected to help strengthen its order book into 2025.
Mr Hallmark said: “I can already clearly see growth opportunities for the company as we bring incredible products to market and deliver on our vision to be the world’s most desirable, ultra-luxury British performance brand.
He added: “We will drive profitability through a forensic approach to cost management and unrelenting focus on quality with a more balanced delivery profile in the future for our full range of new core models.”
Quarterly revenue was up 8% on last year, at £391.1 million, while net debt was up £1.21 billion, up 62% on the same period last year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here