British luxury automaker Bentley Motors posted its seventh consecutive year of profitability on Tuesday, but uncertain times mean the British luxury automaker is cutting jobs ahead of its belated electric future.
Bentley said layoffs could hit 275 positions, or 10% of its non-factory employees. Bentley framed the cuts as an efficiency measure tied to its next phase of growth, but it’s a significant move for the small British company that’s part of the Volkswagen Group (VWAGY).
“We are making some difficult decisions to ensure the long-term competitiveness of the business, including an organisational adjustment,” Bentley CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser said in a statement.
Customer deliveries fell 5% during the year, driven largely by continued market weakness in China. Despite this, Bentley still reported an operating profit of 216 million euros ($247.8 million) on revenue of 2.6 billion euros ($2.98 billion) for 2025, with an operating return on sales (a measure of profit margin) of 8.3%.
Bentley’s ability to squeeze more revenue per vehicle through personalization and higher trims, like its S variants, helped boost margins. Revenue fell 1%, but stronger pricing, model mix, and sustained growth in bespoke Mulliner demand helped offset lower volumes.
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Walliser flagged weakness in China and the overall high-end consumer market to Yahoo Finance in November, when he described the luxury market as still mired in “uncertainty” — particularly in the US and Europe, but especially in China.
Bentley’s decision to reduce headcount was labeled a way to ensure “long-term competitiveness” of the business, but it comes as the company begins the next phase of its EV rollout.
Under its Beyond100+ strategy, Bentley had committed to being exclusively electric by 2030, a target that was pushed back to 2035, and then the company pivoted, stating it would still sell plug-in hybrids alongside EVs beyond that timeframe.
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While the company remains on track to launch its first EV next year, Walliser noted it had “a lot of work to do” to convince its customers to go full EV.
Bentley’s Volkswagen Group stablemate Lamborghini is also finding that its owners are shunning EVs in the rarefied air of ultraluxury automobiles.
Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann confirmed in February that the Italian brand was killing off its Lanzador EV, initially slated for a 2028 release but pushed back numerous times.