8:55 am, July 30, 2020
Volkswagen has published its half-year results that show a 1.4bn euro loss and a hefty decline in vehicle sales amid coronavirus.
The German giant said it was ‘strongly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic’ and ‘countermeasures initiated at an early stage’ helped to reduce costs and safeguard liquidity.
Volkswagen Group posted a loss of 1.4bn euro in the first half of 2020, in contrast to a 9.6bn euro profit in the same period in 2019.
Its dividend will now be cut to 4.80 euro per ordinary share and 4.86 euro per preferred share – down from 6.50 and 6.56 euro respectively.
Deliveries to customers fell year-on-year by 27.4 per cent to 3.9m vehicles. As a result, sales revenue decreased by 23.2 per cent to 96.1bn euro.
Frank Witter, member of the group board of management responsible for finance and IT, said: ‘The first half of 2020 was one of the most challenging in the history of our company due to the Covid-19 pandemic. With our 100-points plan to ensure maximum health protection, we have, for example, created the best possible prerequisites for a safe working environment.
‘At the same time, we introduced comprehensive measures aimed at reducing costs and securing liquidity early on, which enabled us to limit the impact of the pandemic on our business to a certain degree.
‘Thanks to the great team effort, we have gradually been able to ramp up operations within the group and up until now, have steadily managed to navigate through this unprecedented crisis.
‘Due to the positive trend exhibited in our business over the past few weeks and the introduction of numerous attractive models, we look cautiously optimistic to the second half of the year.’
The firm said expects its deliveries in July to be below the same month in 2019, albeit only single-digit percentage-wise. VW also said it expects markets to continue to recover overall in the second half of the year.
The results are in contrast to PSA Group which delivered a second quarter profit, as reported by Car Dealer.
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