Aston Martin wants to accelerate next year. Last year, partly due to the consequences of the corona crisis, the British brand ended up deep in the red, but it is expected to be able to take the first steps towards profitability in the coming year. Among other things, production will increase sharply for this.
It was not a very good year for Aston Martin. Despite the fresh financial injection from billionaire Lawrence Stroll, the brand suffered considerably in 2020. Turnover decreased by 38 percent to € 708.6 million and the loss before tax was € 539.7 million. In 2019, the loss was converted to € 138.5 million. This larger loss is partly due to the effects of the coronavirus, which reduced Aston Martin’s production and total sales fell 32 percent to 4,150 cars. Production fell 42 percent to 3,394 cars. Not only the corona crisis caused Aston Martin to produce fewer cars in 2020. The brand also tried to reduce the total stock of cars at the dealers, which it appears to have succeeded given the difference between production and sales figures.
Furthermore, a lot has changed at Aston Martin in the past year. Lawrence Stroll and his co-investors have swept the broom through the company and hired Tobias Moers from Mercedes-AMG as the new CEO. Next year, Aston Martin expects to be able to reap the benefits of the reorganization, which is internally referred to as ‘Project Horizon’. The target for production is 6,000 cars and the first copies of the Valkyrie should be delivered in the second half of the year. In addition, a new variant of the DBX is planned for the third quarter, but Aston Martin has not released anything further about that. However, the SUV is an important pillar on the road to profitability.
Aston Martin hopes to be able to take the ‘first steps towards profitability’ in 2021, but does not give a concrete figure yet. There is a medium-term goal: around 2024 and 2025, the British want to produce 10,000 cars per year, achieve a turnover of € 2.3 billion and an operating profit of € 579 million. Whether Aston Martin can start this upward trend next year, perhaps with an image boost by the Formula 1 team, will remain to be seen.