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Audi model at a presentation in Shanghai (2021): 53 billion sales for the brand
Photo: Alex Plavevski/EPA
The VW subsidiary Audi increased its profits significantly in the past year despite the semiconductor bottlenecks.
The operating profit before special items was 5.5 billion euros for the brand in 2021, more than twice as high as a year ago, according to the annual report of the parent company Volkswagen.
Revenue for the Audi brand increased by 6.2 percent to 53.1 billion euros.
Profit margin improved to 10.5 from 5.5 percent.
The sports car manufacturer Porsche also earned significantly more in the past year.
The VW subsidiary made five billion euros in profits before interest, taxes and special items with automobile construction – excluding financial services.
That was almost a quarter more than in the previous year.
With around 302,000 cars, Porsche had delivered almost eleven percent more and increased sales by 16.1 percent to 30.3 billion euros.
The operating margin was 16.5 percent after 15.4 percent in the previous year.
Porsche AG is regarded as the most valuable part of the Wolfsburg-based group and should be listed on the stock exchange before the end of this year.
The VW group wants to raise money for its electric offensive.
Volkswagen had already announced good figures for the entire group on Friday.
According to this, the profit of Europe's largest car group rose by almost 75 percent to 15.4 billion euros on the basis of preliminary figures compared to 2020 - despite serious difficulties at times due to the lack of semiconductors.
Sales also increased after the corona-related sales problems of the previous year and grew by 12.3 percent to 250.2 billion euros.
War in Ukraine weighs on outlook
Despite the good numbers, the outlook for the current year is uncertain: "Under normal circumstances, we would have had every reason to be optimistic about 2022," said VW boss Herbert Diess.
VW has achieved good financial results, the pandemic is easing and semiconductor supplies are expected to steadily improve over the course of the year.
But: "The war in the Ukraine called our previous outlook into question." Because of the bottlenecks in wiring harnesses, the group is relocating the production of several tens of thousands of units to the USA and China.
There are currently further production failures at the Audi plant in Neckarsulm.
As a reason, a spokeswoman cited supply bottlenecks in view of the war in Ukraine and the corona pandemic as well as the current situation in the supply of semiconductors.
According to the company, production of the A4 and A5 models has been at a standstill in Neckarsulm since Monday.
The models A6, A7, the sports car e-tron GT and R8 have not been produced since March 7th.
Production is scheduled to pause until March 25th.
Sol/dpa/Reuters