Renault states sales fell 21% in 2020, but turnaround on keep track of

PARIS (Reuters) – French automaker Renault said on Tuesday its all over the world income fell by 21.3% final year, underperforming a decrease in the global automotive market activated by the COVID-19 pandemic and a slowdown in globe economies.

But the company, which is seeking to convert close to its overall performance after acknowledging it had overstretched by itself around several years of bold global enlargement, said its turnaround strategy was nonetheless on observe.

It has stated a crucial factor of that strategy is a target on profitability, not sales quantity.

“We are beginning 2021 with a increased degree of orders than in 2019, a decreased level of stock and a greater value positioning throughout the complete range”, CEO Luca de Meo reported in a assertion.

The company explained world whole sales final calendar year stood at 2.949 million autos. The slide in Renault gross sales in Europe was 25.8 %, marginally beneath-executing the wider European automobile sector.

But gross sales of electric powered cars in the region were solid, soaring 101.4% from 2019 to 115,888.

Renault past calendar year announced strategies to slice about 15,000 work opportunities, shrink output and restructure French crops in a bid to save 2 billion euros.

Like its Japanese alliance husband or wife Nissan, Renault is rowing again on an aggressive growth approach pursued by Carlos Ghosn, its previous manager-turned-fugitive.

The pair have been amongst the weakest world automakers heading into the COVID-19 disaster, missing a clear approach for applying their alliance to arise from the slump and share the stress of investing in electric motor vehicles and other engineering.

Renault shares ended up up .7% in early investing in Paris soon after the revenue figures were being unveiled.