The Volkswagen Group are aiming to topple Toyota and become the worlds top seller of automobiles. Currently the Japanese manufacturer Toyota sits top of the tree in terms of sales but it is proposed that the Volkswagen Group will hit 10million sales this year, which is four years earlier than their original intention. They are also aiming to keep General Motors below them in third place.
Despite this positive increase in sales, it has came at the expense of profit. ISI (International Strategy and Investing) have said that even if the VW Group reach their high end intention of 13 billion euros profit, then this will still mean profits have been pretty flat at the VW Group for four years.
The Volkswagen Group have an amazing almost 25% share of the market in Western Europe, making them the leading manufacturer. Along with their Volkswagen brand, they have Skoda, SEAT and Audi. They also now have the luxury brand Porsche, which brings in a lot of profit and also Bentley and Lamborghini.
ISI said that if you did not include Porsche then the VW Group 2014 profits would only be 9.7billion euros, which is 15% below the 2011 figures when Porsche was not part of the VW Group.
Arndt Ellinghorst the ISI analyst said: “Porsche is of course a central part of VW today and taking it out is an exercise. We believe the key reason for the disappointment of core VW is the performance of the VW car brand, which is 50 per cent of revenues. We estimate that between 2011 and 2014, the VW brand’s (operating profit) will have fallen by some 30 per cent – from 3.8 billion euros ($5.3 billion) to 2.6 billion ($3.6 billion),”
Despite their leading in Western Europe, they still have a long way to go in the American market and a lot of the emerging worldwide markets.
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