Volkswagen only grew slightly last year. For the current year, the Group expects a stronger headwind – but still wants to deliver more cars.
A car from VW in the workshop (archive image)
Friday, 22.02.2019
5:23 pm
Volkswagen has increased the profit in 2018 slightly – despite burdens by the diesel affair, The operating result before special items climbed to 17.1 billion euros, said the world’s largest car maker after a Supervisory Board meeting. In the previous year, the profit amounted to 17.0 billion euros.
On average, analysts had originally expected a slightly lower operating profit this time. As in the previous year, Volkswagen had to incur special costs of 3.2 billion euros over the entire year, above all to cope with the diesel crisis. Overall, the crisis so far 28 billion euros have been tasted,
At 7.3 percent, the return in 2018 was at the upper end of Volkswagen’s forecast range of 6.5 to 7.5 percent. In the previous year, it had amounted to 7.4 percent. Group sales climbed by 6.3 billion to 235.8 billion euros.
The common shareholders, including as the largest the families Porscheand Piëch, the state of Lower Saxony and the Emirate Qatar, should receive a dividend of 4.80 euros per share. The preference shareholders will receive 4.86 euros per share certificate.
Worldwide, Volkswagen delivered 10.8 million vehicles to customers, a slight increase over the previous year. This claimed Volkswagen his position as the world’s largest car maker scarce,
Diess: headwind will be stronger in 2019
“We have done well in 2018, especially against the background of the WLTP conversion,” said CEO Herbert dies, The new exhaust test procedure WLTP has been valid since last September. However, the manufacturers had started to certify their vehicles too late, which is especially true of Volkswagen had led to bottlenecks,
For the current year, Diess said: “The headwind in key markets is likely to be even stronger in 2019.” Should the US implement its threat and impose punitive tariffs on imported cars, fears the carmaker further billions of dollars,
Nevertheless, Volkswagen announced moderate increases in deliveries. The carmaker is therefore expected to increase by up to five percent over the proceeds of 2018. The return should again be between 6.5 and 7.5 percent.
The Group is currently investing billions of euros in the construction of electric vehicles and the development of self-driving cars and new mobility services.