Aston Martin has announced a quarterly loss as it continues to struggle following its listing on the London Stock Exchange last year.
The car maker announced a third quarter pre-tax loss of £13.5 million. That compares unfavourably with a profit of £3.1m in the same period last year, and follows a £79m loss in the second quarter of 2019. Overall pre-tax losses for 2019 stand at £92.3m.
Shares rose by around 8% this morning as the results have beaten initial expectations and keep Aston’s profit guidance for 2019 intact. However, they have since dropped back to previous levels and gone even further, hitting a new all-time low of 402.30 this lunchtime.
The news is blamed on lower-than-expected demand for the Aston Martin Vantage. Just 878 have been registered in the first nine months of 2019 in Europe – less than half the number of Porsche 911s that Porsche registered in September alone.
CEO Andy Palmer told the Financial Times: “The segment of the market in which Vantage competes is declining, and, notwithstanding a growing market share, Vantage demand remains weaker than our original plans. As a consequence, total wholesale volumes are down year-on-year as we balance growth, brand positioning and dealer inventories”.
Aston has a lot riding on its upcoming DBX SUV, which will be revealed on November 20 before customer deliveries begin in the second quarter of next year.
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In search of the new, we abandon the faithful
Aston Martin committed the classic error of abandoning the faithful in search of new customers. I can only suppose those customers buy Japanese.
I am up for a new car and have tried to like the new Vantage, but just cannot. It is the first Aston that made me feel like that (except of course for the latest Zagatos, which are just silly IMHO at crazy prices).
I agree with everything said below.
Give it an Aston Martin front end, drop the price a little and sales will pick up.
The problem is they can't do that! Designers never want to admit they were wrong, and you can't introduce a mid-life kicker lower than the launch price.
Change the facia and discount seems to be the only solution (if volumes are to increase).
Oh one last thing. I think everyone that posted here is absolutely passionate about Aston Martin.
Cant add anything to what's
Cant add anything to what's been said. Porsche makes every redesign of its 911 increasingly attractive even though the bold shape is recognisable from the first one decades ago, but AM makes their versions uglier and uglier.
People aren't stupid.
Get rid of present management and design team and get back Callum to rethink the ugly thing again
Making similar mistakes to
hackjo wrote:
Absolutely agree with that.