Deliveries of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles dropped by more than 25% in the first half of 2022, but the German manufacturer has seen profits more than double, coming in at €187m (£156m).
The increase of more than €100m (£83.5m) in operating profit can be put down to the used vehicles and aftersales businesses which are currently seeing a huge boost, with both making a significant contribution to the company’s bottom line. Continuing supply issues with new vehicles also mean that discounts are virtually non-existent, increasing the average price and, with that, the margin made on each new van.
The continuing semiconductor shortage and the impact of the war in Ukraine are challenges that are still impacting production too, leading to supply chain disruption that’s extending manufacturing and delivery times. These issues contributed to the suppressed numbers of customer vehicles delivered, with just 153,600 vehicles in the first half of the year, a drop from 205,000 in the first half of last year. Of those, 112,200 deliveries were into Western Europe, which accounts for 73% of Volkswagen’s LCV sales.
Despite the increase in profits, however, sales revenue fell by €252m (£210m) to €5.046b (£4.2b).
Happily for Volkswagen, its short-term future looks even better, with the launch of the electric ID.Buzz Cargo van and new Amarok pickup truck, both arriving in the UK and contributing to profits within the next 12 months.
Lars Krause, Member of the Board of Management for Sales and Marketing, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, remarked: “It’s clear that deliveries to customers are falling short of our targets. Despite the drop, however, we even succeeded in increasing our total market share slightly to 13.6% in the European Economic Area by the end of May. This is a clear sign of our brand’s strong sales performance. We’ve embarked on a comprehensive programme of measures for the second half of the year in order to ramp up our production output and thus our deliveries to our customers in particular.
“With the ID. Buzz and the new Amarok, we’ve introduced two very important vehicles for our brand. The ID. Buzz is the all-electric, digital interpretation of our iconic ‘Bulli’. It’s paving the way to sustainable mobility and will also underpin our development activities in the field of autonomous mobility services.”
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