Aston Martin DBX, side view, dailycarblog.com
Aston Martin Stumbles Around Like The Last of The Dodos As Sales Plummet
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It was 2018 and Aston Martin had finally set itself on a financially course-corrected trajectory. Sales were brimming with 6,441 cars delivered, almost back to 2007 levels. However, the company has seen a reversal of fortunes since then. More losses followed in 2019, £120 million, most of which was pocketed by investors and shareholders. Aston Martin abandoned plans to build an electric car and pinned their hopes on the DBX SUV. A botched stock market flotation, overspending and vulture capitalism nearly sunk Aston Martin out of existence. Andy Palmer was the General Custer who led the supercar company into the Little Bighorn. He was scalped from his role in 2020 when billionaire Lawrence Stroll swooped in to buy an ailing asset that was about to have the life-support switched off.

But Stroll’s acquisition of Aston Martin and subsequent capital investment could not stem the open wound leftover by Palmer. The maker of high-performance luxury supercars reported a £466 million loss before tax for 2020. Revenues fell by 36 percent year-on-year to £611 million. There was some relief to the perpetual doom and gloom, sales of the DBX SUV rose during the final quarter of 2020 which increased revenue by 3 percent. It doesn’t sound promising but it represents the light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Or does it?

Aston Martin achieved 4,150 sales for 2020, however, the global pandemic has hit Aston Martin hard. As a comparison, Lamborghini has managed to achieve record sales with the Urus selling close to 5,000 units per year alone. The Bentayga SUV contributed to a 2 percent increase for Bentley in 2020 with total annual sales tipping over 10,000 units per year. Yet Aston Martin is back to less than 2005 levels of annual sales. Tobias Moers, a former Mercedes AMG CEO, took over in 2020 and is targeting to sell around 6,000 cars in 2021, a figure last achieved in 2006 and 2007 and repeated years later in 2018.

The overall target is to achieve 10,000 annual sales by 2025. But if we go with basic stats and the supply and demand history of Aston Martin, in theory, it could take them 12 years to hit 6,000 annual vehicle sales. Moers is claiming demand for the DBX SUV is strong but failed to give figures which means current demand is lower than anticipated. Perhaps Moers was talking to the Stock Market rather than addressing underlying issues.

Why are competitors such as Lamborghini and Bentley performing better during a global downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic? That is the bigger question Aston Martin needs to ask itself.


Aston Martin DBX, side view, dailycarblog.com
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