Ferrari to raise prices of luxury sports cars

ferrari sports car luxury

Ferrari is to increase prices of its luxury sports cars as the Italian manufacturer posted record profits following booming demand from wealthy customers.

Benedetto Vigna, chief executive of Ferrari, said the carmaker would start to increase prices from the start of next year after raking in record orders from customers who are accepting deliveries beyond next year.

Ferrari’s V8 convertible Portofino M retails for around £175,000 Ferrari, while its sportier mid-engine F8 line of cars sell from £204,000.

Demand from Chinese and American buyers pushed up sales of cars by 29pc to 3,455 during the three months to the end of June, sending profit 22pc higher to €251m compared with a year earlier.

Mr Vigna said the company was in “a phase of strong growth, with quarterly record results in terms of revenues” and profit.

Shares in Ferrari rose 1.2pc to €209.40 each. The shares have gained 16pc in the last year.

Hybrid cars now account for 17pc of sales, Ferrari said, with the remainder purely driven by petrol engines. The company is moving towards electrification and expects 40pc of sales to be purely electric by 2030. Ferrari will make its first SUV in September, entering a lucrative market that rivals Lamborghini and Aston Martin have already cashed in on.

Luxury car makers have had a record run as their wealthy customers splashed out during the pandemic. The shorter production runs associated with higher-end models have also shielded companies such as Ferrari from the parts shortages suffered by their mass-market competitors.

Ferrari has managed to position itself as a luxury brand, earning itself the kind of share price valuations normally reserved for fashion houses, much to the envy of other car makers, whose shares trade at more modest levels.

Its shares have gained more than fourfold since listing as a separate entity in 2015, when it was spun out of Fiat, which had owned at least half of Ferrari since 1969. Ferrari is now worth more than €40bn, not far from the €44bn valuation of Stellantis, which not only owns its former owner Fiat but also Chrysler, Peugeot, Maserati and Vauxhall.

This is in spite of only making 11,155 vehicles last year compared to Stellantis’s 6m, albeit at vastly higher profits per vehicle.