Acquisition of new brands further strengthens VW's global position
The Volkswagen Group's before-tax profits leapt by £5.7bn to £25.5bn in 2012 as sales of vehicles from its 12 brands – which include truck makers MAN and Scania – jumped by one million units to 9.3 million. Total VW Group 2012 revenue was £167bn, up 20.9 per cent on 2011.
VW's automotive division now has a 12.8 per cent share of the global car market.
Of these 9.3 million sales, 5.7 million were VW-branded vehicles, up 12.8 percent over 2011. VW made an operating profit of £3.1bn, which was down four per cent on 2011. Company bosses blame this on the significant costs of rolling out the new MQB platform and factory system.
Skoda sales in 2012 were up 6.8 per cent to 939,000 vehicles, but profits slipped to £618m. Seat sales dropped by 8.3 percent to 321,000 units, which VW attributes to the state of the Spanish and wider southern-European economy. Seat's losses were cut by £59.8m, but it remained £135m in the red.
Bentley continued its turn-around with sales in 2012 up from 7003 to 8510 units, contributing to an operating profit of £86.7m. Porsche only became a full member of the VW Group in August, but it sold "over 140,000" units in 2012 – a record for the brand. VW said that the company made a profit of £820m between August and December last year.
The Audi brand, as Autocar reported earlier this week, delivered 1.5 million vehicles (up from 1.3 million in 2011), and operating profits grew marginally to £4.7bn. VW Group sold 2.8 million cars in China, up 24.6 per cent year-on-year.
VW Group says that the return on investment at its automotive division was down from 17.7 per cent to 16.6 per cent in 2012, though this is still well above its self-imposed target of 9 per cent. VW Group sold 1.4 million vehicles across January and February this year, up 8.3 per cent year-on-year.