Volkswagen is in for another tough year dominated by tariffs and the battle to win back China after Europe’s largest carmaker reported a slump in operating profit on Tuesday and forecast only a modest recovery for its dwindling margin.
Like its rivals, Volkswagen has contended with pressures across major markets, with US tariffs costing the company billions and local competition eroding its share in China, the world’s biggest car market.
The German car group, whose subsidiaries Porsche and Audi have also come under strain, expects an operating margin of between 4% and 5.5% in 2026, after 2.8% in 2025 and 5.9% a year earlier.
Analysts polled by Visible Alpha expect a 5.2% margin this year, at the higher end of the company’s forecast range.
“We are operating in a fundamentally different environment,” CEO Oliver Blume said in a statement.
The carmaker’s operating profit more than halved in 2025 to €8.9bn, missing analysts’ forecast of €9.4bn, dragged by tariffs and a costly strategic shift at Porsche, which paused its transition to electric last year amid weak demand.
Revenue was flat at €322bn, with scant hopes for growth in 2026, when the company expects revenue to develop in a range of 0% to 3%.
Again analysts’ expectations were at the higher end of the scale.
CFO Arno Antlitz said product launches and restructuring measures in 2025 were important to boost Volkswagen’s resilience. “But the operating margin of 4.6% adjusted for restructuring is not sufficient in the long run,” he said, adding Volkswagen would continue to rigorously reduce costs.
Porsche, whose stalled EV strategy pushed the parent deep into the red in the third quarter, saw its operating profit almost entirely disappear, falling by 98% to €90m in 2025. Its operating margin fell to 0.3% after 14.5% in 2024.
Reuters
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