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Porsche swung into the red for the first time since it was listed in 2022 reporting a near €1bn loss as the German sports-car maker made a costly shift to focus on petrol engines rather than an emphasis electric vehicles.
The group reported an operating loss of €967mn in the third quarter while operating profits for the first nine months of the year was just €40mn compared with €4bn during the same period in 2024.
The sports-car maker has been a dependable source of profits for the Volkswagen group, but has struggled in the face of lower-than-expected demand for EVs, falling sales in China and increased US tariffs.
“We expect 2025 to be the trough that precedes a noticeable improvement for Porsche from 2026 onwards,” chief financial officer Jochen Breckner said in a statement.
Porsche was “consciously accepting” weak results as it reorganised its product line-up, Breckner said. The company announced last month it would book a charge of €1.8bn after shelving a new all-electric hybrid, instead bringing forward new petrol and hybrid models.
The measures were “essential . . . to strengthen Porsche’s resilience and profitability in the long term”, Breckner added.
Porsche would also focus more on making its cars “more individual, exclusive and desirable”, said the CFO.
The group in September slashed its operating margin forecast for 2025 to 0-2 per cent, down from 14 per cent the previous year on its new strategy which would see it bring additional models with petrol and hybrid engines to market. Current battery models would continue to be updated.
In China, one of its two key markets, sales in China fell 26 per cent in the first nine months. In the US, Porsche saw its sales rise by over 5 per cent in the same period, but is facing tariffs on all the vehicles it sells in the market owing to the lack of a manufacturing footprint.
US tariffs were expected to have a total cost in the “three-digit million range” Porsche said.
Porsche last week said its current chief executive Oliver Blume would step down at the end of the year, to be replaced by former McLaren chief Michael Leiters.
Blume, who has been Porsche boss for a decade, has held a double role as chief executive of the Volkswagen group since 2022, a position he will retain. VW holds 75.4 per cent of Porsche and, together with the Porsche-Piëch family, owns all of the voting stock.
