The largest German car manufacturer expects a good 2023 financial year.
(Photo: dpa)
Hamburg Despite the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis, Europe’s largest carmaker Volkswagen can look to the coming financial year with more ease. For 2023, the group is forecasting a return on sales of between 7.5 and 8.5 percent. At the lower end of the range, that’s half a percentage point more than forecast for last year.
Sales are expected to increase by between ten and 15 percent, as Volkswagen announced on Friday. The Wolfsburg company increased its net profit by around three percent to 15.8 billion euros last year.
The VW share was in great demand in view of the news: after the figures were announced, their price jumped by up to almost nine percent to almost the 140 euro mark. The last time there was such a price jump in the paper was in mid-March 2022.
From this, the shareholders are to receive a dividend increased by EUR 1.20 each. Instead of EUR 7.50 per ordinary and EUR 7.56 per preferred share as in the previous year, EUR 8.70 and EUR 8.76 respectively are to flow to the shareholders, including the largest holding company Porsche SE of the Porsche and Piëch families, the state of Lower Saxony and the emirate Qatar.
“Today’s results are further proof of the solid financial basis on which we are consistently implementing our strategy,” explained CFO Arno Antlitz.
Volkswagen published the first key data from its balance sheet in early February. Accordingly, the inflow of cash last year almost halved from 8.6 to five billion euros because many cars had to be produced in stock due to a lack of semiconductors. The funds tied up were significantly higher than expected.
For this year, the people of Lower Saxony are assuming that the trend will be reversed, as stocks are decreasing and production is running smoothly again. Because of the uncertain economy, however, customers are now staying away, which poses new problems for the group.
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