Shares are losing ground – windfall effect?
Volkswagen expects lower growth
March 1, 2024, 4:25 p.m
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Europe’s largest car manufacturer Volkswagen is cautious about the current year. Revenue is expected to increase moderately – also thanks to new models. In the past year, however, revenues rose significantly, but operationally the Wolfsburg-based company was treading water.
After an unexpectedly strong increase in sales recently, the car manufacturer Volkswagen is preparing for somewhat weaker growth again. The DAX group announced that revenues across the group are expected to increase by up to five percent. Hopes rest, among other things, on the market launch of new vehicles. The Wolfsburg-based company expects the operating return on sales to improve to 7 to 7.5 percent. VW boss Oliver Blume said that the clean-up work at VW had been completed and that the main course had been set for the restructuring of the group. “We can build on this in 2024 and have a solid basis for an accelerated ramp-up from 2025.”
Last year, the VW Group generated 322.3 billion euros – around 15 percent more than the previous year and more than analysts predicted. Meanwhile, the operating result stagnated at 22.6 billion euros. The operating return on sales fell by more than one point to seven percent. The higher sales and better prices would have largely offset higher product costs and negative influences from raw material hedging transactions. The operating return fell accordingly by a good point to seven percent.
The figures were met with price losses on the financial market: shares temporarily lost more than eight percent. A stockbroker said that this was probably a case of profit-taking: the numbers themselves and the outlook were better than expected.
Shareholders are to receive a dividend increased by 30 cents each. Instead of 8.70 euros per ordinary and 8.76 euros per preference share as in the previous year, 9.00 and 9.06 euros should flow to the shareholders, the largest of which is the Porsche SE holding company of the Porsche and Piech families, the state of Lower Saxony and the Emirate of Qatar.
According to its own information, the group delivered a total of 9.24 million vehicles to customers worldwide. A good 770,000 of them were electric cars – an increase of more than a third over the year. While overall sales in North America and Europe rose sharply, growth in China was meager at just two percent.