Geely's Volvo Cars has announced new financial and operational goals which, it said, "will position the company as a leading player in the global automotive business by the middle of the next decade".
On the operational side, it expects to generate half of all annual sales from fully electric cars, one third of all cars it sells to be autonomous and half of all cars it offers to customers from its new 'Care by Volvo' subscription service launched with the XC40 here in the UK last September.
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Volvo Cars expects these initiatives to transform its connection to its customer base, with the aim to build a total of more than 5m direct consumer relationships by the middle of the next decade, creating new sources of recurring revenue. This will also offer the company far greater potential to develop connected and other services for customers.
"Our customers' expectations are changing rapidly. This means that Volvo Cars is also changing rapidly. These initiatives will help transform Volvo from being purely a car company to being a direct consumer services provider," said president and CEO Hakan Samuelsson.
On the financial side, Volvo Cars aims to generate "premium-level profitability in line with other premium car makers", driven by increased sales and revenues across all three global sales regions, and a broader range of cars, including sales to the new segment of autonomous ride-hailing companies.
The company's improved financial performance will also be driven increasingly in the future by industrial synergies generated with its affiliated partner companies.
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By GlobalDataVolvo Cars expects to benefit from lower procurement costs, shared development costs and economies of scale alongside Polestar, its premium performance electric car brand, and Lynk & Co, the new global car brand in which Volvo Cars owns a 30% stake.
"This paves the way [us] to continue growing fast into the middle of the next decade," said Samuelsson. "The company has been transformed since 2010 into a global premium car company. Now it is time for this transformation to be turned into a period of sustained profitability in line with other premium brands."
The automaker booked achieved record profits and sales in 2017, with a 27.7% increase in operating profit and worldwide sales of 571,577 cars. This was the fourth consecutive year of record growth, underlining the transformation of the automaker's finances and operations since being acquired by Geely Holding.
It has also added factories in key markets and completely renewed its model line in recent years.
