Stuttgart Porsche breaks a sound barrier: within ten years, the sports car maker has tripled sales. In the 2021 financial year, Porsche delivered exactly 301,915 vehicles worldwide for the first time in the company’s history – a growth of eleven percent.
With the Taycan, Porsche dared to go it alone, which was initially controversial in the VW Group. In the record time of less than five years, the sports car manufacturer developed the Taycan and set up its own completely new production facility in Zuffenhausen.
With the good result, Porsche remains one of the most important profit makers in the VW Group. Because last year, Porsche achieved a return on sales of 14.6 percent and a profit of 4.4 billion euros before taxes on sales of 28.7 billion euros. The performance of the Zuffenhausen-based company should further fuel the current discussions about an IPO.
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One thing is already certain: In the two years of the pandemic, the sports car manufacturer, of all people, has shown itself to be astonishingly resilient. The reason is, however, that the VW group prefers Porsche in the global chip crisis when it comes to delivering chips, as the new head of purchasing, Barbara Frenkel, confirmed to the Handelsblatt at the beginning of the year. “We are given priority in the Group because of our earnings contribution,” says Frenkel, “but we cannot rest on that.”
Courage for new models
The reason for the success is also the courage to come up with new models. Whenever the group cracked a new hundred-thousand-meter mark in the past, an expansion of the model range played a decisive role in this. It was not until the advance into the SUV segment with the Cayenne that the 100,000 mark came into view. The four-door Panamera sports sedan then succeeded in overcoming this hurdle in 2011.
What is striking is the dynamic in the past decade under the umbrella of the VW Group. It took the sports car manufacturer until 2011, 63 years since the company was founded by “Ferry” Porsche after the war, to achieve the first 100,000 mark.
The Taycan rolls off the assembly line at the main Porsche plant.
(Photo: dpa)
Less than five years later, the 200,000 mark fell in 2015, mainly due to the then new compact SUV Macan. With the Taycan, Porsche has also succeeded in occupying the growing electromobility segment with a bestseller.
Without Corona, the record would have fallen earlier. But in 2020 total Porsche sales fell by around three percent to a good 270,000 units – also because production had to be stopped for weeks due to the pandemic.
It was different in 2021: “Despite the challenges posed by the shortage of semiconductors and the volatile corona situation, we were able to fulfill the dream of having their own Porsche for more customers than ever before,” says Head of Sales Detlev von Platen. “Demand remains high and our order books are well filled.” That is why Porsche is starting the year 2022 full of vigor and confidence – worldwide.
Does Porsche risk its exclusivity?
In Zuffenhausen there are still no fears that Porsche could lose its exclusivity with the growing sales figures – as long as Porsche has a share of less than 0.5 percent on the world market. And at least the drivers of the iconic 911 do not need to worry about their residual values, which have increased continuously in recent years.
Around 38,400 911 units were also sold in 2021. That is twelve percent more than in the previous year – a sales record. “Numbers are not decisive for us. Rather, we want to stand for exclusive and unique customer experiences and will continue to expand them worldwide, ”emphasizes sales manager Detlev von Platen.
The Porsche dealerships in the USA were formally bought short. Customers there do not accept long delivery times and often buy from the farm. The market is correspondingly empty after a sales increase of 22 percent to around 70,000 vehicles.
With an increase of eight percent to around 95,700 units, China remained Porsche’s largest single market. On the German home market there is an increase of nine percent to around 28,600 vehicles.
A total of 86,160 Porsches were handed over to customers in Europe – seven percent more than in 2020. 40 percent of these were electrified, i.e. purely electrically operated or with a hybrid drive. “The strategy to further electrify our fleet is working,” says sales manager von Platen with conviction. The sports car manufacturer wants to sell more than half of the vehicles at least partially electrified by 2025.
As a result of the model revision, the smaller SUV Macan increased by 13 percent to over 88,000 units, thus compensating for the decline in its older brother, the Cayenne. The Macan is the next model to get an all-electric version.
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