The car maker Volkswagen want despite the Corona virus-Pandemic still make an operating profit with the VW brand this year. “We continue to be financially robust and are aiming for a positive operating result for the year as a whole,” said Brand Finance Director Alexander Seitz (58) on Friday. “We are ready to push ourselves to the limit,” he said.
The Wolfsburg-based company accumulated an adjusted operating loss of 1.5 billion euros in the first half of the year after a positive result of 2.3 billion euros in the same period of the previous year. According to Seitz, VW had already reduced the fixed costs by half a billion euros compared to the previous year.
Saving for the brand has been at the top of the agenda for years, and the company’s costs were considered too high, especially when compared to other mass producers. VW CEO Herbert Diess (61) was also brought to the brand in Wolfsburg in 2015 because of his reputation as a “cost killer”. VW cut tens of thousands of jobs in a large savings package. However, the increasing introduction of the MQB modular system for the production of many models is only gradually being reflected in the results.
VW relies on new models – and on China
Seitz doesn’t want to let up when it comes to saving. The lower fixed costs are predominantly of a sustainable nature. The manager plans to keep fixed costs at a similar or only slightly higher level in the first half of the year. That was the goal set internally. Seitz did not want to comment on his personal future with the car manufacturer. According to reports, his position could also wobble as part of the management reorganization. Ralf Brandstätter (51) took over responsibility for the entire core brand VW from Herbert Diess on July 1st (read the background: “Herbert Diess – cowboy without weapons“)
In the first half of the year, tens of thousands of employees in the German factories had registered for short-time work due to the lockdown due to the pandemic. The car dealerships were closed for weeks from mid-March, and for a long time hardly any cars were sold in many regions of the world. After the three-week company holiday that started this week, business should start again, says Seitz. In Europe, the brand wants to start production again at the same level as before the crisis.
“We are hoping for a tailwind in the second half of the year because our model offensive will develop its full potential,” said Seitz. Among other things, VW is launching the important ID.3 mid-size electric car, and the Golf 8 is also expected to give further impetus. Sales manager Jürgen Stackmann (58) also sees great opportunities for the plug-in hybrids with a mixed drive of electric and internal combustion. Thanks to state funding, the demand for these models is currently high among private customers, but above all among commercial customers.
Stackmann particularly hopes for a quick recovery in the chinese market. In July, he estimates that there would be a 2 percent increase in deliveries compared to the already strong month of the previous year, when a change in approval guidelines caused a boom. Worldwide, VW is currently still anticipating a 6 percent drop in deliveries for July.
VW Group CFO Frank Witter (61) had the day before in the course of published group figures said, the core brand will only really return to the profit zone in the fourth quarter. Seitz wants to be in the black again in the third quarter. The brand also wants to present an inflow of financial resources, according to Seitz.
Brands Porsche and Skoda achieved operational plus
In contrast to the core brand VW, the sports and off-road vehicle daughter turned out to be Porsche also a source of earnings in the first half of the year. As before, the operating result shrank by more than a quarter to around 1.2 billion euros became known on Thursday. But this makes the Stuttgart company one of the few brands in the group with a profit. Only the Czech VW sister brand Skoda, which hits the mass taste with its affordable models, also achieved an operating plus of 228 million euros among the passenger car brands.
At 9.9 percent, the return on sales at Porsche was only single-digit. In order to achieve his ambitious return target of 15 percent in the foreseeable future, CFO Lutz Meschke (54) announced further savings. “Large, joint efforts are necessary for secure jobs,” said Meschke, but did not give any details.
Audi wants to fight for a loss of 750 million euros again
The second VW premium subsidiary Audi wants to fight its way back up. To this end, the new CEO Markus Duesmann (51) wants to realign the brand with the four rings and fill the old Audi slogan “Advancement through technology” with new life. As a premium brand, Audi should also play a pioneering role in the group in electromobility.
Ingolstadt is still struggling with the Corona crisis: In the first half of the year there was an operating loss of 750 million euros – after a profit of 2.3 billion euros in the previous year. Sales slumped 29 percent to EUR 20.5 billion.
2020 will be Audi according to your own expectations Sell 1.6 million cars. That would be a good 10 percent less than in 2019. But Duesmann does not give up the year. He wants to keep the return on sales at 3.3 percent (EBIT). His predecessor Bram Schot (59) had reached 8.1 percent in 2019.
In 2021, the Audi boss wants to generate an operating profit of 4.2 billion euros again, 2022 more than in 2019 before the crisis and 6 billion euros in 2023. The return on sales would then be 9.2 percent back on the pre-Corona course predicted in 2019. The figures are in a report that Audi presented with the invitation to the Annual General Meeting this Thursday.