Aston Martin's financial turnaround is complete as the company on Tuesday announced its first annual pre-tax profit since 2010 and is poised to grow substantially in the coming years.
The British sports car marque's profit for 2017 came in at $121 million, overturning a loss of $226 million reported the previous year.
This was on the back of record revenues of $1.21 billion made possible by a 58 percent surge in sales to 5,117 units, the highest since 2008. Aston Martin pointed to the DB11 and special projects such as the Vanquish Zagato and Vantage GT8 as sales boosters during 2017.
“In 2017, we delivered record revenue, full-year profitability and positive free cash flow,” Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer said in a statement. “The financial turnaround of Aston Martin is now complete, which enables us to drive further improvements across the business as we maintain our new launch schedule and continue delivering on the Second Century plan.”
The plan Palmer is referring to calls for the launch of seven cars in seven years. The plan was announced two years ago and the first two of the promised seven cars have already been introduced in the form of the DB11 (2016) and new Vantage (2017). Due this year will be a new Vanquish and in 2019 we'll see the DBX SUV.
The order of Aston Martin's three remaining cars isn't clear but we're currently expecting the SUV to be followed by a mid-engine supercar in 2020 and then a sedan in each of the years 2021 and 2022. Beyond this date, Aston Martin will repeat the 7-year cycle with redesigned cars. And along the way we'll also see special edition models like the Valkyrie hypercar and RapidE electric car.
Given the positive outlook, Aston Martin is well aware of the potential investment dollars it could draw in. The company is looking at a number of options, including going public, partnering with a major automaker, or both. Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler already owns a 5 percent stake but Aston Martin says a more substantial partnership may be needed to address more challenging developments sweeping the auto industry such as electrification and self-driving technology.
