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MILAN (Reuters) -Stellantis, the world’s fourth largest automaker, said on Thursday its revenue fell 14% on a pro-forma basis in the third quarter, mainly due to a loss of 600,000 vehicles or 30% of planned production, following the chip crisis.
Third-quarter revenue amounted to 32.551 billion euros ($37.8 million), short of analyst expectations of 33.02 billion euros in a Reuters poll.
“The level of chip shortage was probably slightly higher that what we had expected when we last spoke to the market in August,” Chief Financial Officer Richard Palmer said, adding the full-year total toll of lost production due to the chip crisis would top a previous forecast of 1.4 million units.
Palmer however said the company was seeing a “moderate” improvement on the chip supply front in October compared with the previous month and expected such trend to continue through the fourth quarter.
“Visibility on semiconductors continues to be a difficult subject for the industry,” Palmer added.
The carmaker, formed at the beginning of this year through the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA, confirmed its full-year target for an adjusted operating profit margin of around 10%, assuming no further deterioration of semiconductor supply and no further significant lockdowns in Europe and the U.S.
Stellantis, however, revised its full-year industry growth outlook for some of its regions, lowering them for North America, South America and the enlarged Europe area, while improving them for the Middle East and Africa region. It kept them unchanged for India and Asia Pacific and China.
($1 = 0.8619 euros)
(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari in Milan and Gilles Guillaume in Paris; editing by Agnieszka Flak)
