British luxury sports car maker Aston Martin reported a surprisingly high third-quarter operating loss and cut its full-year sales forecast due to production problems with its new DB12 model. The company’s shares reacted to this information with a significant drop and lost over ten percent.
The carmaker announced in a press release that its adjusted operating loss in the third quarter decreased to 48.4 million pounds (roughly 1.4 billion CZK) from 55.5 million pounds a year ago. However, according to Reuters, analysts had expected a sharper drop in the loss, to £38m.
The company’s quarterly sales rose 15 percent year-on-year to £362.1 million. But they fell short of analysts’ expectations, who estimated them at 370 million pounds.
The sales volume in the third quarter increased by four percent year-on-year to 1,444 cars. In the whole of this year, the car company now expects to sell 6,700 cars, while earlier it estimated the annual sales at 7,000 cars.
“Due to initial delays in ramping up production of the DB12 during the third quarter, we have adjusted our full-year sales volume outlook slightly,” the company said. However, she added that the issues have already been resolved and that demand for the new model is very strong.
The Aston Martin car company was founded in 1913. Its cars were made famous by, among others, the fictional secret agent James Bond. In 2018, the company listed its shares on the London Stock Exchange.
