MILAN – As the quarter-end approaches, Pininfarina Vice President and CEO Silvio Angori confirmed the company’s previously stated forecast for growing revenues. Speaking on the sidelines of an exhibit celebrating the company’s 95th anniversary at the Automobile Club Milano, Angori acknowledged a market-related dip in the first half of the year but expressed strong optimism for the future.
“Despite a decline that was connected to market conditions in the first six months,” Angori stated, “we have a very significant order portfolio that has consolidated, indeed grown, over the year. This gives us good prospects for the year and for the future. We look to the future with optimism.”
He explained that the company is finding immense satisfaction in its non-automotive ventures. “The entire world of conceiving, engineering, and producing very small series and limited editions is giving us great satisfaction,” Angori said. “All our activities linked to mobility, first and foremost, and especially in the world of architecture and port design, are giving us great satisfaction. It is counter-cyclical to the automotive world and gives us great hope for our future.”
According to Angori, electric vehicles (e-cars) represent one potential solution to the current problems in the automotive sector. “I believe one of the first aspects is linked to the containment of costs and therefore the final prices of cars,” he observed. “If you consider how many cars there are in Italy under €15,000, you will probably find perhaps one, two at most. So it is evident that there is a problem. The drop in sales is linked to car prices that are barely sustainable for the vast majority of people today. Therefore, the e-car is one of the possible solutions, together obviously with other things,” he concluded.