2020 may have been tough, but 2021 has been record-breaking so far for Volvo Cars.
Malaysia may be under lockdown, but elsewhere in the world, things are moving forward. In fact, companies like Volvo Cars, things may even be looking better than ever! The company just posted its 1H 2021 results and two aspects are astonishing.
The company has posted its best-ever half-year of operating profits. Operating revenue was 141 billion SEK, up by 26% with operating income at 13 billion SEK, which gives them an operating margin of 9.4%.
In terms of sales, the first half of 2021 saw an increase of 41% versus the first half of 2020. Versus the more comparable first half of 2019, it’s still an impressive growth of 12%. This makes H1 2021 the best year in terms of car sales in the company’s 91-year history.
That being said, they failed to meet their decade-long sales target of 800,000 cars. Still, they got to 775,000 cars despite an impossible-to-predict pandemic and that’s very commendable.
“Volvo Cars has a decade-long track record of successful transformation. The car industry is changing more than ever, and we have a strong determination to be the fastest transformer,” said Håkan Samuelsson.
Volvo Car will soon be taking the company public. This latest result is sure to help increase the value of their upcoming IPO. What’s more, the company are doing well in many other areas, including environmental sustainability and electrification strategy. Couple that with the fact that Volvo Cars will become the first non-Chinese car company to own all its assets in China and you have a recipe for instant stock market success.
What’s pretty interesting for us Malaysians to note is just how inconsequential Malaysian market sales must seem on a global level. If the whole country can go into lockdown and choke sales for something like 3 months without affecting their global results by much, how is our country being viewed by their HQ?
We don’t know.
What we do know is that Volvo Car Malaysia has got local assembly operations set up, so it can’t be a comfortable place in to not sell a lot of cars for 3 months.
