The UK’s McLaren Automotive, which only began building its range of supercars for general sale in 2010, said on Thursday it was on course to double its sales volumes in 2016, but posted a drop in profits last year.
The firm, which builds all of its luxury models in Britain but has showrooms in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, blamed interest costs and foreign exchange fluctuations for a 64 per cent fall in pretax profit to £5.4 million (Dh26.1m).
But the weakening of sterling ahead of the EU referendum, which has continued since UK voters backed leaving the 28-member bloc, could help its 2016 performance, McLaren’s chief executive said in March.
The firm unveiled its 570 GT model this year and has been ramping up its production and model line-up, expanding in a market segment traditionally dominated by rivals such as Ferrari and Aston Martin.
“The launch of the Sports Series opens McLaren up to an entirely new audience and will be pivotal in developing our sales volumes from the 2015 levels of 1,600 to nearly triple that number by 2020,” said the chief executive Mike Flewitt.
In 2015, the firm sold a record 1,654 cars, with prices ranging from about £120,000 to more than £800,000 and is hoping to broaden the brand’s appeal to new types of buyers, including more women, with its 570 GT model.
McLaren, which exports more than 90 per cent of its high-end models, said the fall in the value of sterling was benefiting the firm financially.
“We sell about 70 per cent of our cars into either dollar markets or dollar-denominated markets so that brings increased revenue,” Mr Flewitt said on Thursday.
“So as we look forward, and if everything just stayed as is, actually probably a slightly beneficial situation financially.”
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