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A few days ago, luxury car brand Aston Martin released its latest results, showing that Aston Martin's adjusted operating loss in the third quarter of this year was 48.4 million pounds (about 432 million yuan) and net income was 362.1 million pounds (3.23 billion yuan). A pre-tax loss of 117.6 million pounds. Aston Martin said that production of the DB12 sports car has been temporarily hampered by supplier problems and delays in the integration of new infotainment systems, but the outlook for 2023 remains the same, and strong demand for its new sports car is expected to boost its cash and profit margin plans.

It is understood that Aston Martin DB12 officially went on sale in June this year, with a starting price of 2.518 million yuan and delivery in the third quarter. On the power side, the Aston Martin DB12 carries a 4.0T twin-turbocharged V8 engine with a maximum power of 680hp and a peak torque of about 800Nm, matched by an eight-speed automatic transmission. It is worth mentioning that the car is equipped with electronic rear-limited slip differential for the first time, the acceleration time of 0-100km/h is only 3.6s, and the maximum speed can reach 325km/h.

Although expensive as an ultra-luxury brand, life is not easy for Aston Martin. Aston Martin was born in 1913, has a history of a hundred years, is one of the world-famous ultra-luxury car brands, but the development of Aston Martin is very tortuous, capital has become its biggest problem, which is also the main reason for its repeated bankruptcy and resale. In June 2018, Aston Martin was listed on the London Stock Exchange in the UK, hoping to improve its operation through fund-raising in the secondary market. However, after the listing, Aston Martin's performance has not been effectively improved, and the share price has plummeted and is still hovering at the bottom.

Since going public, Aston Martin has never been out of the loss quagmire. In 2019, Aston Martin lost 104 million pounds before taxes; in 2020, Aston Martin lost 323 million pounds. Aston Martin's sales rose sharply in 2021, narrowing the loss, but the full-year operating loss still reached 76.5 million pounds. In 2022, its operating loss widened again to 118 million pounds. After entering 2023, Aston Martin's losses did not improve.

In order to improve the operation of Aston Martin, it had to seek cooperation with other car companies. On May 18, Geely Holdings announced a further cooperation agreement with British ultra-luxury performance brand Aston Martin Lagunda International Holdings. Aston Martin said Geely Holdings had pledged about £234 million to acquire about 42 million existing common shares of Aston Martin from Yew Tree Investment Group and to subscribe for about 28 million new shares, increasing its stake in Aston Martin to 17 per cent. According to the cooperation agreement, Geely Holdings has completed the increase of its stake in Aston Martin. After this increase, Aston Martin's shareholders include Yew Tree Investment Group, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Geely Holdings and Mercedes-Benz. Geely Holdings Super Mercedes-Benz has become the third largest shareholder of the Aston Martin brand, while Yew Tree Investment Group remains the largest shareholder with a shareholding of about 21%.

On June 27th, Aston Martin announced an agreement with Lucid, a new power brand in the United States, to jointly produce high-performance electric vehicles. Under the terms of the proposed agreement, Aston Martin will issue 28.35 million new common shares to Lucid and pay cash to Lucid in installments, with a total value of approximately $232 million. At that time, Lucid Group will become a shareholder in Aston Martin, with a stake of about 3.7 per cent. It is understood that Aston Martin will pay a total of $132 million in cash to Lucid in phases and promise to spend at least $225 million on the electric carmaker's powertrain components. In addition, Aston Martin will pay Lucid another $10 million to integrate its technology into its products.

On August 8th, Aston Martin appointed senior executive Andy Haslam as president of Greater China and Bernd Pichler as executive general manager of Greater China. It is understood that Wang Fang (Freda Wang), the former president of Aston Martin Greater China, will leave due to personal reasons, and Bixile will assist Anhaolan in his work as executive general manager. Before joining Aston Martin, he was the executive general manager of Bentley Motor in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, where he was responsible for the sales and operation of the brand's second largest market.

On October 10, Aston Martin announced that it had received 9 million pounds (80.19 million yuan) from the Advanced Propulsion Center (APC) to develop a new modular pure electric (BEV) vehicle platform. Aston Martin has pledged to invest 2 billion pounds over the next five years to transition from an internal combustion engine to an electric car. The company plans to equip all new models with electrified powertrain options by 2026, with the long-term goal of achieving full electrification of the "core series" by 2030.

Industry insiders believe that Aston Martin is in a deep financial quagmire and lacks widespread attraction, so it is difficult to achieve the sales performance of Ferrari, thus providing sufficient funds for electrification transformation. Whether it is Geely's increase in holdings, or the agreement with Lucid, it can be seen that Aston Martin hopes to increase sales through technical cooperation as soon as possible. Of course, only time will tell whether electrification can help Aston Martin embark on the road of turning losses into profits.

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