Volkswagen, Europe’s top carmaker, on Wednesday stuck to its outlook for the current year after its global production network helped it offset supply chain disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic.
Global carmakers, like many industrial sectors, face a scarcity of key components in the wake of COVID-related lockdowns and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, compounding an ongoing shortage of semiconductors.
Volkswagen said it continued to expect sales to rise 8%-13% and an operating profit margin of 7.0%-8.5% in 2022, pointing to its global network which allowed it to move parts to those regions and brands that needed them most.
“As a truly global company, we have extensive production capacities in all major growth and sales markets worldwide,” Chief Executive Herbert Diess said in a statement.
“Volkswagen’s global set up helped us to mitigate many of the adverse effects we are currently seeing.”
It still pointed to uncertainty from the conflict in Ukraine and the pandemic, adding the company could currently not foresee the full impact a deterioration of the situation would have on its business.
Volkswagen, which could list luxury division Porsche AG in a partial initial public offering later this year, said it still expected chip supply to improve in the second half of the year.
The company, which reported preliminary results for the first quarter last month, reported sales of 62.7 billion euros for the first three months of the year, up 0.6% year on year.
(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; editing by Paul Carrel and Jason Neely)
