Almost exactly a year ago, the new one explained Renault-Boss Luca de Meo (54) in an interview with manager magazin, how he wants to get the battered French car icon moving again. Looking ahead to 2021, one can say: de Meo achieved his goal last year. The carmaker returned to profitability in 2021 and even did better than planned thanks to an austerity program and rising prices.
While sales increased by 6.3 percent to 46.2 billion euros despite lower car sales, the company also made a profit again with 888 million euros, Renault announced on Friday in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris. Renault had posted a record loss of 8 billion euros in the Corona crisis in 2020. The pandemic had amplified homegrown problems. In the current year, CEO de Meo wants to record further savings, but still sees problems with the chip supply.
De Meo started in 2020 to get the weakening returns in the French back on track. In the past year, despite the continuing decline in sales, rising prices and the concentration on high-margin segments played into its hands, similar to that of its competitors.
Yield target achieved two years earlier
Adjusted operating profit was 1.66 billion euros after an operating loss of 337 million euros in the previous year. The corresponding margin reached 3.6 percent – CEO Luca de Meo had actually only promised profitability of more than 3 percent for 2023. This year it should be at least 4 percent. Last year’s results and the outlook for 2022 beat analyst estimates.
The Renault Group sold 2.7 million cars and light commercial vehicles worldwide in 2021, 4.5 percent fewer than in 2020, which was burdened by corona lockdowns. The reasons for this were, among other things, the problems with the semiconductor supply – Renault recently spoke of the loss of half a million units. Throughout the industry, however, high demand coupled with scarce production means long delivery times and rising prices. De Meo had recently indicated that he expects a favorable price environment again this year. In 2022, Renault expects to produce around 300,000 fewer cars than under normal circumstances due to the shortage of chips, which will mainly affect the first half of the year.