8:26 am, January 19, 2024
Bentley’s global sales fell by 11% last year, but more customers personalised their cars than ever before.
The Crewe-based company said it delivered 13,560 cars in 2023 compared with 15,174 during 2022, which was its best ever year of sales.
Last year was still the third best year for sales, however.
Demand weakened in some markets, and the overall year-on-year fall was driven particularly by 18% decreases in sales to both the UK and China.
While overall sales were down, more customers ordered their cars through Bentley’s bespoke Mulliner divisions, though.
Bentley said that around three-quarters of its customers went beyond the 46 billion different configurations available from the standard options range to add bespoke features – a 43% rise over 2022.
The company has previously stated it is focusing on the profit it makes from each sale rather than chasing volume.
The British marque also saw customers gravitate more to towards higher revenue models such as Azure, S and Speed, the mix of which reached 70% up from 30% in 2022.
The Bentayga SUV remained Bentley’s best-selling model and accounted for 44% of sales.
The recently introduced Extended Wheelbase model ‘exceeded expectations’, and took more than a third of total Bentayga orders.
Meanwhile, the UK was the leading market globally for Bentley’s Flying Spur and Bentayga hybrid models. Some 27% of UK sales were hybrids.
Adrian Hallmark, chairman and CEO of Bentley Motors, said: ‘The luxury market was not immune from the challenging market conditions seen around the world in the second half of 2023 and despite this we were able to deliver our third highest retail position in history and enter 2024 with a strong order bank.
‘Building on this, our quality of sales was much greater, with significant increases in our higher value derivatives, and a significant growth in demand for bespoke personalisation.’
He added: ‘We remain cautiously optimistic for the year ahead, with a continued robust global demand by market and model, high levels of interest in our hybrid models and with more to follow this year.’
Bentley finished 2023 with 235 retailers in 63 countries.
