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Renault boss Luca de Meo: Corona comes with the chip crisis
Photo: ERIC PIERMONT / AFP
The French carmaker Renault posted a record loss of eight billion euros last year, mainly because of the deep red numbers at its Japanese partner Nissan.
In 2019 there was a comparatively small loss of 141 million euros, as Renault announced on Friday in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris.
Consolidated sales fell by 21.7 percent to 43.47 billion euros in 2020.
The manufacturer has been in crisis for a long time and was also hit by the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
Renault had already announced the reduction of 15,000 jobs worldwide and cost savings of around three billion euros.
The carmaker had taken out four billion euros from a state-guaranteed credit line of up to five billion euros, the company said.
Renault has a 43.4 percent stake in Nissan.
Now the top management is looking ahead.
In the second half of the year, sales picked up somewhat and the profit margin improved, it said.
Thanks to price increases for some models, the group made money again in the third and fourth quarters.
Sales continued to decline, but not as strong as before.
The new Renault boss Luca de Meo wants to bring the carmaker back on the road to success with sharper austerity measures and the conversion to a software-driven technology group.
Renault is making better progress than expected when it comes to reducing fixed costs by two billion euros, he said.
The goal could be achieved by the end of the year.
At the same time, de Meo agreed that 2021 should be another difficult year, not least because of the chip shortage, which is currently affecting the automotive industry worldwide.
The chip crisis could peak in the second quarter, affecting production of 100,000 cars.
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