Healthy worldwide sales fuel VW profits surge
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Volkswagen, Europe's largest car-maker, yesterday reported a huge leap in first-half net profits of DM282m (pounds 123m), up 150 per cent from the same period last year.
Hans-Peter Blechinger, a spokesman for VW, said: "Increased sales of 14 per cent and strong earnings on financial services are the roots of the good results.
"Although competition in the market for small cars has increased incredibly, we were able to raise our share of the market in Europe from 16.7 per cent in January to 17.2 per cent in July. Compared with our competitors we did outstandingly well." The German car-maker, which includes the Czech Skoda manufacturer, said that group income from ordinary activities, the main benchmark used by industry analysts to evaluate the company, rose 45 per cent to DM891m from DM616m last year. Volkswagen's worldwide deliveries to customers rose by 12.6 per cent to 2 million vehicles in the period.
But the car-maker is losing market share in its very own and biggest market, Germany, which accounts for 25 per cent of total sales. Here market share fell by 1.5 per cent to 27.3 per cent.
"Our German performance was below average. But in the growth markets such as Asia or South-America we realised growth rates up to 36 per cent," Mr Blechinger explained.
Volkswagen was happy with its performance in the UK market. Mr Blechinger said: "We improved our market share in Britain from 4.0 per cent in the first half of 1995 to 5.41 per cent in the same period this year. This is a fantastic result - but we won't be satisfied with it for long."
Volkswagen is currently at the centre of a row between the European Union and the state of Saxony over subsidies worth billions of German marks for constructing a new car-plant near Dresden.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments