Aston Martin slashes losses amid high SUV sales

Sales of Aston Martin’s new SUV has helped it significantly slash losses amid ballooning revenue, the luxury carmaker said on Wednesday.

The carmaker reported a nearly £91 million loss for the first six months of the year, compared to more than £227 million in the same period in 2020.

It sold more than 1,500 of its new DBX cars, which were released to the market last year.

This was more than half of the cars that Aston Martin sold in the period.

It helped revenue soar by more than 240% to £499 million, the luxury carmaker said on Wednesday.

“When I joined Aston Martin just over a year ago, I had in mind key milestones that needed to be achieved to put the right foundations in place for the company’s future success,” said executive chairman Lawrence Stroll.

He added: “These have all been delivered, from appointing a world-class leadership team, to successfully rebalancing supply to demand and crucially strengthening the financial resilience of the business.”

SUVs have proven increasingly popular in recent years, and Aston Martin’s entry into the market is turning around the performance at the struggling business.

Around a decade ago just one in 10 new cars sold in the UK were SUVs. Today that had increased to four in 10, according to data from the New Weather Institute.

The development has worried environmental campaigners, and the International Energy Agency has warned that the increase in these big cars last year used up all the fuel saved by other drivers switching to electric vehicles.

“All told, it was a solid six months for the luxury carmaker, but the group’s far from being able to set the cruise control,” said Laura Hoy, Equity Analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“Aston Martin’s undoubtedly behind the curve with its electric vehicle strategy, a market that will likely become a much bigger piece of the puzzle as time goes on.”