On March 15, Volkswagen Group said at the 2022 annual media communication meeting that the Volkswagen Group's business has maintained a good profit margin in the face of a serious shortage of chip supply, and in the past year, the Pre-tax profit of Volkswagen Group was as high as 20.1 billion euros, compared with General Motors, the pre-tax profit in 2021 reached 14.3 billion US dollars (about 13 billion euros), and the Volkswagen Group was 7 billion euros higher than GM.
Subject to the impact of international raw materials and supply chains, the Volkswagen Group delivered a total of 8.882 million vehicles in 2021, and the overall sales volume decreased by about 500,000 units from last year, down 4.5% year-on-year, although it ranked second in the list of global automobile groups, but this is the lowest level of sales of the Volkswagen Group in the past 10 years. Toyota Motor, which won the 2021 global automobile sales championship, sold 10.5 million vehicles, an increase of 10.1% year-on-year, ranking first in global automobile sales for two consecutive years.
The former global sales champion GM is not only a decline in profits, last year's global sales of about 6 million vehicles, but also fell to the fifth place in the world, which is the fifth consecutive year that GM has shown a downward trend.
On Friday, the Volkswagen Group released its 2021 financial data, and at the annual media briefing on March 15, the Volkswagen Group elaborated on more details. Arno Antlitz, CFO of Volkswagen Group, revealed that the EBIT margins of several of the group's luxury brands have risen sharply. For example, in 2021, the EBIT margin of the Audi brand reached 10.5%, almost double compared to 2020, the Bentley brand soared from 1% in 2020 to 13.7% in 2021, and the Porsche brand increased from 15.4% in 2020 to 16.5% in 2021.
In contrast, the EBIT margin of the Volkswagen brand, although up, was only 3.3%, Skoda was 6.1%, Seat was -2.4%, and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicle was 0.7%. It can be seen that the EBIT margin of Volkswagen Group's luxury brands is significantly higher, with Porsche having the highest pre-tax margin.
Volkswagen Group announced that the Porsche IPO is expected to take place in the fourth quarter. In July last year, Volkswagen released the NEW AUTO strategy, and Volkswagen believes that Porsche's IPO will be very helpful to the advancement of this strategy and will bring great value. In 2021, Porsche Taycan sales exceeded the 911 model, and Porsche's electrification strategy began to bear fruit.
Despite the uncertainty, Volkswagen Group CEO Diess said Volkswagen still has ambitious full-year 2022 targets, expecting Volkswagen's global deliveries to grow by 5%-10% by 2022 and the group's revenue to increase by 8%-13%.
In terms of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, Diess stressed that the Volkswagen Group has raised more than 900,000 euros for relevant institutions and enterprises and provided the necessary material needs. Diess said Volkswagen had to suspend production at its Russian-related factories, while Volkswagen paid 80 percent of its employees in Russia and would also provide necessary support to Volkswagen's Russian wiring harness suppliers. It is reported that the Volkswagen Group has set up a special working group to respond to the crisis and shift production capacity to the Chinese and American markets.
In terms of electrification, the Trinity project is the most important next step in Volkswagen's electrification, which will produce a pure electric model with a sense of futuristic design and technology, and this car will directly enter the L4 level of autonomous driving. The Volkswagen Group will build a new electric factory and R&D center next to the Wolfsburg plant, which may become an important measure against Tesla Giga Berlin.
Shortly before that, Volkswagen CEO Diess once again praised Tesla Musk and the company he leads, and said that Volkswagen and Tesla can become complementary forces in the electric vehicle market.
Dies explained how the two companies play different roles in the world's automotive industry, which is moving from fossil fuels to climate-friendly electric vehicles. He called Tesla a pioneer and noted that Volkswagen has some iconic products that can be redesigned for the electric vehicle market. "I think we're complementary. It's as if Tesla is paving the way. ”
Dies said that the Volkswagen Group now has the ability to provide electric models corresponding to all its fuel vehicles, and more ID. family models will be listed next. In order to sell more pure electric vehicles, the Volkswagen Group is also building its own charging stations in the global market. It is expected that by 2025, the Volkswagen Group will build 45,000 charging piles worldwide. So far, about 10,000 have been put into use.
In addition, the Volkswagen Group believes that the price advantage of the MEB platform is very obvious, and is confident that the profit margin of pure electric vehicles will be raised to the same level as that of fuel vehicles, and will increase the opening of the MEB platform to third parties. Ford will also use Volkswagen's MEB platform for production, achieving greater economies of scale and improved profit margins.
In terms of the Chinese market, in 2021, the Volkswagen Group will occupy 16% of the market share in China. The Volkswagen Group will promote its electric vehicle strategy as planned, with the goal of doubling sales of all-electric vehicles by 2022. The Volkswagen Group also looked forward to its 2022 performance, with the group's delivery volume increasing by 5% to 10% year-on-year, revenue increasing by 8%-13% year-on-year, and the sales share of pure electric vehicles will reach 7%-8%.
At present, volkswagen group is firmly transforming into a technology travel service group, the upstream supply chain will continue to increase investment in the battery field, in addition to the identified three major battery factories in Germany, Sweden and Spain, it will also be selected for the fourth battery plant in Eastern Europe. It is reported that Volkswagen invested more than 1.7 billion euros in the battery field last year, including a stake in Guoxuan Hi-Tech from China.