Aston Martin -DBX SUV - Sword of Damocles - dailycarblog.com
Will The DBX SUV Become Aston Martin’s Sword of Damocles?
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Aston Martin is forecasting global sales to reach around 6,000 units for 2019 despite being under a dark cloud of falling sales and a plummeting market value. There is renewed hope that the all-new DBX SUV will turn around the fortunes of the company. Or will it? CEO, Andy Palmer, is predicting bumper sales for the DBX, between 4,000 – 5,000 units per year. The DBX will sell in good numbers, for the first year at least, and then sales will slowly decline. It may well be difficult for Aston Martin to achieve 4,000 sales during the first full year of DBX production.

Aston Martin is still a small scale operation, financed by debt, it has re-branded itself into a maker of luxury goods. The DBX has been designed for the wealthy female in mind. We know this because Aston Martin has been pushing this particular narrative. Female focus groups have been used extensively to gain insight into what women want from a luxury SUV. Aston Martin says demand for SUVs has been largely driven by women.


However, research reveals that buyers of SUVs are almost evenly distributed between both genders. If Aston Martin is pushing this narrative of the successful, multimillionaire female SUV buyer, are they not neglecting their male demographic? It just feels a bit confusing as to why Aston Martin is pursuing this specific marketing focus.

Perhaps Aston Martin is trying to tap into the growing female empowerment movement of equality and fair pay. Which is great. But let’s be realistic if Aston Martin wants to ride this female empowerment wave then they should be paying all their female workers equally right now. But that will never happen.

Women will continue to be undervalued in pay and the only equality they will receive will be in the payment of platitudes. OK, so how did Aston Martin arrive at the 4,000 DBX sales per year figure? What metrics are they using? We really don’t know, the CEO hasn’t been specific about how he arrived at the minimum 4,000 per year sales prediction.

Aston Martin DBX, dailycarblog.com

Perhaps he looked at the sales figures for the Bentley Bentayga, which by coincidence sold 4,075 units in 2018. Here’s my prediction, the DBX will sell between 1,500 and 2,500 units in its first full year of production. That will bring it to close to the sales Lamborghini achieved with the Urus for 2018. So why did the Aston Martin CEO confidently cite 4-5,000 DBX sales per year?

Aston Martin is listed on the stock market, and everything the CEO says carries a lot of weight and expectation. When he talks the stock markets and investors are listening. The 4,000 per year DBX sales figure is calibrated to meet the fast-flowing nature of the stock markets and that alone can either raise or lower the company’s day-to-day share price.

Stock markets rely on nothing more than confidence as much as bumper record sales. And that’s why everything CEO Andy Palmer says can increase or decrease the value of the company at a click of the fingers. For Aston Martin, the DBX SUV literally is the definition of the Sword of Damocles.


Aston Martin -DBX SUV - Sword of Damocles - dailycarblog.com
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