Ingolstadt, July 31, 2012 – €25.0 billion revenue, an operating profit of €2.9 billion, and an 11.5 per cent operating return on sales. These figures demonstrate how the Audi Group succeeded in adding yet another chapter to its success story in the first half of the year, despite weaker economic growth and the contraction of many car markets.
Axel Strotbek, Member of the Board of Management of AUDI AG for Finance and Organization, emphasized: “The high demand in the first half is a testament to the success of our model strategy.” The Company delivered 733,237 (2011: 652,892) vehicles of the Audi brand to customers, an increase of 12.3 per cent on the first six months of 2011. Demand was especially high for the new Audi Q3 as well as for the Q5, A6, A7 and A8 models.
The increase in deliveries pushed revenue up to €25,022 (21,526) million – a rise of 16.2 per cent on the previous year. The Audi Group increased its operating profit by 13.2 per cent to €2,876 (2,540) million. This was despite the stronger recessionary tendencies above all in southern EU countries. The operating return on sales of 11.5 (11.8) per cent was thus kept at the high level of recent quarters.
Following the healthy first-half business performance, the Audi Group plans to deliver a total of more than 1.4 million cars of the Audi brand in 2012 as a whole.
The Audi A1 Sportback, the Q3 and the new A3, which appears on the market in the late summer, will help Audi towards this goal and secure growing market shares in many sales markets.
The publication of the Interim Financial Report prompted CFO Strotbek to confirm another annual target of the Audi Group: “Provided the economic framework does not deteriorate further, we expect operating profit to remain on a par with 2011 despite higher expenses for new products, technologies and expanded production structures.”
Interim Financial Report 2012 available from: www.audi.com/interimreport
Article source: www.audi.co.uk