The ailing Volkswagen Group is coming under increasing pressure. CEO Oliver Blume has to cut his profit prospects again because the company won’t sell as many cars this year as once hoped. According to the information, things are going worse than expected, especially for the already very strained core brand VW Passenger Cars, but VWN’s light commercial vehicles and its own supplier division are also weakening. The poor economic situation is putting a strain on sales, and the group’s financial services division is also earning less. The VW share lost after trading. Share price under pressureThe Volkswagen preferred security listed in the Dax lost 2.9 percent after trading on the Tradegate trading platform on Friday compared to the Xetra closing. It was already clear to observers after the events of the past few weeks that VW was under pressure – but market experts had still expected more in terms of profits. The umbrella holding company Porsche SE, owned by the Porsche and Piech families, which is in charge at VW, also had to lower its profit expectations. The Stuttgart-based company’s business is largely dependent on the results of the Wolfsburg-based company. Instead of an increase in deliveries of up to 3 percent compared to the previous year’s figure of 9.2 million vehicles, Volkswagen is now only expecting around 9 million sales, as the company said on Friday after the stock market closed announced. The previously targeted increase in sales of up to 5 percent above the 322 billion euros generated last year is also no longer applicable – now sales are likely to only be around 320 billion euros. Blume also expects profitability to be weaker: he is now estimating the operating result 18 billion euros and thus an operating profit margin of around 5.6 percent of sales. Most recently, the company had assumed a return on sales of 6.5 to 7.0 percent. VW had already lowered its earnings forecast in July due to the expected costs for the Audi factory in Brussels, which was in jeopardy. Recently, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and the VW sports car subsidiary Porsche also had to reduce their expectations for the financial year. The suppliers are often doing even worse. Problems in the automotive industry The problems in the industry are wide-ranging: many car manufacturers are affected by the weakness in the former growth market of China. VW Passenger Cars lost its market leadership in the world’s most important car market last year after decades because Chinese electric car manufacturers such as the new top dog BYD declared war on the Germans with cheap electric cars. Mercedes, BMW and the sports car manufacturer Porsche are suffering from the fact that wealthy Chinese are currently struggling with the real estate crisis in the country and are therefore paying more attention to money. In Europe, the electric car business is currently going badly, in which car manufacturers have invested many billions. More on the topicVW justified the cut forecast with weaker than expected results for the core brand VW Passenger Cars, for VWN’s light commercial vehicles and for the components division. The company currently wants to massively expand its austerity measures for its core brand and has terminated the employment security scheme that has existed for decades; redundancies and plant closures are up for debate. The economic environment and weaker development in the financial services division also had a negative impact, according to VW. At the umbrella holding company Porsche SE, the dreary business in Wolfsburg means that the Stuttgart-based company now only has a profit of 2.4 to 4.4 billion euros for the current year Taxes expected. So far, 3.5 to 5.5 billion euros were still in the plan.
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