Ferrari boosts earnings as wealthy pay more; Purosangue orders reopened

MILAN -- Ferrari said its core earnings rose 27 percent to 537 million euros ($594 million) in the first quarter as the automaker raises prices for its vehicles and starts deliveries of its Purosangue crossover-style model.

Ferrari unveiled the Purosangue in September. The high-riding, four-door car looks more like an SUV than the company’s traditional portfolio of low-slung, two-door sports cars.

Ferrari has decided to reopen orders for its new Purosangue, CEO Benedetto Vigna said. After unveiling the car last September, Ferrari stopped taking orders for the car two months later as high demand sent waiting lists for some customers to around two years.

"We were caught by positive surprise for these strong interest," Vigna told analysts on an earnings call on Thursday.

Deliveries of the 390,000-euro Purosangue are due to start in the current quarter.

Vigna said customers now ordering the 12-cylinder Purosangue will have to wait until 2026 to receive it. He confirmed Ferrari's pledge to keep Purosangue sales below 20 percent of total group shipments over the car's life-cycle and not to extend it, to retain a degree of exclusivity.

Ferrari, which unveiled the Roma Spider in March, has promised a total of four new models this year.

Ferrari has been hiking the prices of some of its models with its wealthy clientele less acutely affected by soaring inflation and rising interest rates.

CFO Antonio Picca Piccon told analysts that Ferrari is now applying mid-single digit price increases on selected models and markets it had announced last year.

He said the company expected a strong second quarter, followed by a softer second half of the year -- the fourth quarter in particular -- in line with its planned product cadence.

Car price increases will counterbalance current cost inflation, Ferrari said.

Ferrari's margin on adjusted EBITDA grew by 2 percentage points in the first quarter compared to the same quarter of last year, to 37.6 percent. Revenue was 1.43 billion euros.

The company is preparing to shift to electric vehicles and turn its historic factory in northern Italy into a hub for battery-powered cars.

The first full-electric Ferrari is expected in 2025 and battery-only as well as plug-in hybrid models are slated to dominate the company’s portfolio in the second half of the decade.

Hybrid cars made up 35 percent of shipments during the first quarter, the company said.

"Ferrari's transition to an electrified future may increase its average transaction price and augment its mammoth 154,000-euro Ebitda per vehicle as ICE based products become specials," Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Joel Levington said last month.

Bernstein analysts noted that Ferrari's "extremely strong" product mix, pricing power and lengthy order book protected the company against potential recession-driven order cancellations.

Ferrari confirmed its full-year forecasts, although the Bernstein analysts said they expected them to be raised later in the year.

Bloomberg contributed to this report