Luxury car maker Aston Martin has posted a heavy loss for the first quarter of 2019, despite seeing a ten per cent rise in the number of cars sold.

The Warwickshire-based manufacturer recorded a £17.3 million pre-tax loss for the three months to April 2019, down from a profit of £2.8 million in the same period last year.

But the company said strong demand in both China and the US continued to drive up revenues while trade in both the UK and Europe fell.

Turnover for the first quarter of the year rose from £185.4 million in 2018 to £196 million, a period in which it sold 1,057 vehicles, up from 963 in the first quarter of 2018.

Aston Martin described the period as a "seasonally small quarter".

The company floated on the premium segment of the London Stock Exchange's Main Market last October.

Chief executive Andy Palmer said: "Despite declining total industry volumes, Aston Martin has delivered a sales increase that reaffirms its position as a luxury marque that offers some resilience to these wider automotive trends.

"Our Q1 results, yielding a 12 per cent increase in core car wholesales and a 39 per cent increase in global retail sales, demonstrates both this resilience and the demand-led approach of our business model.

"Moreover, the retail growth in the Americas, which almost doubled is encouraging as it vindicates our focus on and effort in this important region.

"This overall sales success across the range has allowed us to rebalance the excess dealer inventory from last year's supplier issues and we see more normal stock levels prevailing for the rest of 2019.

"We remain conscious of the challenging external environment in certain of our markets and we have taken this into account in our planning while ensuring we do not compromise on delivery.

"We expect our normal H2 seasonality to be amplified by specials which are heavily weighted to Q4 this year."