By Victoria Waldersee, Christina Amann, Christoph Steitz
BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) -In Could, Volkswagen (ETR:) finance chief Arno Antlitz warned that Europe’s prime carmaker had about two or three years to arrange for cut-throat competitors from overseas, primarily China.
Final week, he lower that already-tight timetable by a yr, sending shockwaves by way of the worldwide auto sector by threatening to close vegetation within the firm’s residence marketplace for the primary time.
Whereas a lot of Volkswagen’s challenges – from a weakening Chinese language market to a slower than anticipated change to electrical automobiles, have plagued it for some time, two current developments have made issues worse for the German group, based on interviews with seven firm sources, traders and analysts.
First, issues have grown that Asian rivals, together with BYD (SZ:), Chery and Leapmotor (HK:), might velocity up plans to construct manufacturing capability in Europe if Brussels goes forward with deliberate hefty import tariffs on China-made EVs.
Second, Volkswagen just lately lower costs for VW model automobiles to counter more durable competitors, a transfer that based on works council boss Daniela Cavallo has value the corporate lots of of hundreds of thousands of euros in income.
Not solely have been the reductions steeper than initially anticipated, however they satisfied administration that the excessive value base in Germany is jeopardising Volkswagen’s means to compete with extra agile rivals, an organization supply stated, with out giving particulars of the value cuts.
The supply declined to be recognized because of the sensitivity of the matter. Volkswagen declined to remark.
“This is one of the largest car producers in the world which is not producing large returns out of all that scale,” Cole Smead, CEO of Volkswagen shareholder Smead Capital Administration, stated. “Do I think they can sustain that level of production in a country that demands so little? It’s impossible.”
Approaching prime of restructuring bills, the reductions have undermined the VW model’s efforts to scale back prices by greater than 10 billion euros ($11 billion) by 2026.
In consequence, the VW passenger automobile model noticed its revenue margin crash to 0.9% within the second quarter from an already meagre 4% within the first.
By comparability, margins at Renault (EPA:) and Stellantis (NYSE:), the 2 different massive European quantity carmakers, have been 8.1% and 10% respectively within the first half of the yr.
VW’s squeezed margins – at a time when Chinese language rivals have elevated imports into Europe – have stoked fears of what might occur after they produce domestically in future.
In spite of everything, carmakers – together with the Chinese language – are competing for a smaller piece of the pie: Europe’s automobile market is 13%, or two million automobiles, smaller than earlier than the pandemic, CFO Antlitz stated.
Citing the quite a few challenges, DZ Financial institution analyst Michael Punzet stated he anticipated Volkswagen to chop its full-year group margin goal once more when it publishes third-quarter outcomes.
It already slashed the goal to six.5-7.0% in July because of provisions over the potential closure of a Brussels manufacturing unit of luxurious subsidiary Audi.
FIGHT OVER COST
As demand shrinks, promoting mass-market automobiles has change into a struggle over who makes them on the lowest value.
“The thinking of finding solutions through growth is gone. Everyone is losing share, and companies need to readjust,” Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois stated.
Antlitz stated final week that the VW model – which accounted for greater than half of group manufacturing final yr – had been spending more cash than it earned for a while, including the corporate wouldn’t succeed if that development continued.
Volkswagen’s automotive money stream, a key gauge of working well being, turned destructive within the first half of 2024 to minus 100 million euros, towards a optimistic 2.5 billion in the identical interval final yr.
Fierce competitors isn’t just an issue at residence.
Income from China, Volkswagen’s single greatest market, have practically halved over the previous decade to 2.6 billion euros in 2023. Anticipated to rise to round 3 billion euros by 2030, they are going to barely get well.
One other massive drawback is power and labour prices in Germany, that are among the many highest in Europe and have additionally change into a serious headache for the nation’s chemical compounds and metal sectors.
“New cheaper competition, higher energy prices, and high labour costs all align for a very difficult outlook especially for European mass brands,” Citi analysts stated this week.
($1 = 0.8994 euros)
