Actually, 2024 for Audi The year of the transformation, but the VW subsidiary also stuck in the crisis in early 2025. The car manufacturer earned significantly less in the first quarter than in the already weak period of the previous year.
The bottom line was that a profit of 630 million euros remained at the Audi Group level, which in addition to the core brand also includes Bentley, Lamborghini and Ducati. That was 14.4 percent less than a year ago.
Strong competition
Audi is currently justifying the further decline with a tightened competition and political uncertainties. “The year will remain very demanding due to the global economic framework,” said CEO Gernot Döllner (56).
The fact that the decline was not even stronger was that the comparative figures from the same period were extremely weak. At that time, Audi had more than halved his win – among other things because parts were missing for important and profitable engines. In addition, good business with the daughter Lamborghini supported the result.
High costs for CO₂ provisions
The core brand Audi, on the other hand, continues to weaken and reach very small margins. In addition, the company had to make provisions for the tightened CO₂ regulations in the amount of a low three-digit million amount, as CFO Jürgen Rittersberger (52) said.
CEO Döllner is now hoping for the company’s new models. The model offensive is now “gradually coming up in the global markets,” he said. At the same time, Audi “took decisive steps for the reorganization of our company”.
This also includes one massive job cuts in Germany. In March, Audi announced that it would be deleted up to 7,500 jobs in his home market by 2029 and to shorten the participation of results for the employees for several years. Job reduction could begin in the current second quarter.
In other areas, too, it has just stopped: Audi had planned to control the sale of electric cars to private customers themselves and to limit the dealers to the role of intermediaries. However, the so -called agency model failed: dealers felt disempowered, the customers were dissatisfied, and the sales figures were left behind the expectations. Therefore Audi now ends the project much earlier than originally planned And returned to the classic dealer sales as of July 1, 2025.
Shrinking profits in China
The fact that the numbers are not good had already become apparent – among other things, since the sales figures were slightly declining. Here there were constant problems in China depressed. Audi suffers there – Like its competitors BMW and Mercedes-Benz – under strong competition. Audi CFO Rittersberger spoke of a “very intensive price competition”. Audi earned 170 million from the China business-a little less than a year ago.
New models that Audi recently launched on the market were not enough to turn the downward trend. Rather, the model change because of the costs associated with them first press the result. In contrast, sales recently increased relatively clearly – from 13.7 billion euros in the first quarter of 2024 to 15.4 billion euros.
Already the group mother Volkswagen had Last bad numbers registered for the first quarter: The profit had dropped by almost 41 percent to 2.2 billion euros. Also competitor Mercedes-Benz starts weakly into the year, BMW announces its numbers on Wednesday.
Ifo sees a bad mood in the auto industry
The German car manufacturers currently suffer from several fronts. In the China market that is important to you, the competition through domestic brands and thus the price competition is becoming increasingly sharp. In the economically tense situation, wealthy people have been buying fewer foreign premium and luxury cars for some time. In addition, the Customs policy of the new US president Donald Trump (78) on the prospects, even if it was only weakly noticeable in the first quarter.
The German auto industry is particularly export -oriented and has heavily globalized supply chains, so it is particularly sensitive to rising tariffs. This was also evident in the latest figures from the Munich IFO Institute for the mood in the auto industry.
With minus 30.7 points, the index for the business climate in the industry in April once again fell a little deeper. “The US tariffs, which came into force at the beginning of April, suffocated initial positive business developments, especially in the European market,”, “said ifo expert Anita Wölfl.
More on the subject
Audi is also rather careful in the forecast. The group sticks to its previous goals – i.e. sales between 67.5 and 72.5 billion euros and an operational return on sales between 7 and 9 percent. However, these numbers contain neither the effects of the US tariffs nor the consequences of the job cuts.