Volkswagen with most successful year ever

2010 was the most successful year in the history of the Volkswagen Group. Last year the German Group saw its revenue increase by 20.6 percent to €126.9 billion, with the Automotive Division registering most of the €21.7 billion growth. For 2011 Volkswagen wants to keep the sustained growth and to further expand its market position.

“Our new models, environmentally friendly technologies and modular toolkits are now laying the best possible foundations for profitable growth”, said Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, CEO of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, on Thursday during the presentation of the Company’s 2010 financial results in Wolfsburg.

With the 2010 results Volkswagen gives another good step towards achieving its “Strategy 2018” goals of becoming the the global economic and environmental leader' in the motor industry by 2018. In 2010 the Group’s unit sales, market share, image ratings, earnings and financial strength all improved.

"This is further impressive proof of our Group’s robustness and competitiveness. We significantly increased our profitability, which shows that our decision to continue our policy of disciplined cost and investment management was the right one", said CFO Hans Dieter Pötsch.

Thanks to the Automotive Division the Volkswagen Group had increased revenue of €19.8 billion. In 2010 the Group has invested approximately €5.7 billion in the Automotive Division, but still managed to lower the ratio of capital expenditure to sales revenue by 1.2%.

"Our disciplined cost management does not hurt our products", underscored Pötsch. "It is only possible thanks to the systematic modularization of our vehicle concepts. This leads to significant savings in both unit costs and one-time expenses", the CFO continued. Until 2015 Volkswagen is planning to invest €53.5 billion in the Automotive Division, with an extra €10.6 billion in China.