Renault vehicle sales fall for the fifth straight quarter

Renault’s sales dropped for a fifth straight quarter as the French automaker is having a hard time dealing with the crises caused by the coronavirus pandemic without a major presence in the rising Chinese markets and the worldwide shortage of electronic chips hit production.

Under CEO Luca de Meo, the automaker is looking to produce fewer cars and focus on those with higher margins, a plan that is starting to bear some fruit.

The company saw an increase from rising vehicle prices in January-March, for the third consecutive quarter.

But this was far from offsetting the hit from shrinking inventories and other headwinds like unfavourable foreign exchange effects, and total revenue drops 1.1% to 10 billion euros ($12 billion) from a year ago.

Renault said sales increased 4.4% when stripping out currency and other effects.