At the beginning of July, Volkswagen had already scaled back its expectations for the 2024 financial year. Now the Wolfsburg-based company is presenting figures for the second quarter – which are better than some had expected.
The Volkswagen Group made less profit in the second quarter – but performed better than expected given the problems with its biggest brands. The operating result fell by 2.4 percent to 5.46 billion euros, as the DAX group announced. Analysts had on average expected a larger decline. Despite lower sales in the second quarter, sales rose by 4.1 percent to 83.3 billion euros, thanks in part to the good performance of financial services. Profit, on the other hand, fell by 4.2 percent to 3.63 billion euros.
In addition to the decline in day-to-day business at the important profit generators Porsche and Audi, the group also had to bear the costs of job cuts at the core VW passenger car brand. As already announced, VW has set aside 0.9 billion euros for this. The special expenses of around 1.7 billion euros for the possible closure of the Audi plant in Brussels are not expected to be incurred until the current third quarter – because of these, the Wolfsburg-based company had lowered its earnings forecast for the full year at the beginning of July. The management team led by CEO Oliver Blume has now confirmed this outlook.
Source: Stern
