Aston Martin sticks to 2023 outlook after smaller Q1 pretax loss

(Reuters) -British luxury carmaker Aston Martin Lagonda on Wednesday reported a narrower quarterly pretax loss and maintained its 2023 outlook, benefiting from the strong sales of its sport utility vehicle DBX and higher selling prices.

Aston Martin, whose models were favoured by fictional British spy James Bond, had said in March that it expects profitability to improve this year and turn free cash flow positive in the second half as it begins deliveries of its next-generation sports cars in the third quarter.

“Since the start of the year, we have continued to see strong demand across our product range, with our current range of sports cars essentially sold out for the year,” Executive Chairman Lawrence Stroll said in a statement.

Free cash outflow in the quarter stood at 118 million pounds, compared with 25 million pounds of outflow a year ago as it spent on the development of new sports cars and its electrification programme.

Aston Martin said it expects 2023 to be the “peak year” of capital spend.

Loss before tax for the three months to March 31 was 74.2 million pounds ($92.7 million), compared with 111.6 million pounds a year earlier.

($1 = 0.8008 pounds)