Volkswagen posts €5.8 billion loss on Porsche write-down, China woes

Volkswagen recorded a net loss of €5.82 billion ($6.48 billion) in the third quarter as a multibillion-euro impairment at its luxury sports car subsidiary Porsche, weak business in China and restructuring costs weighed on earnings.

The German carmaker had reported a loss of just over €1.07 billion in the same period a year earlier.

One-off effects totalling €7.8 billion were the main reason for the loss, Volkswagen said on Thursday. The group was also hit by weak market conditions in China, mounting price and competitive pressure worldwide and a higher share of lower-margin electric vehicles in its sales mix.

Revenue fell 6.3% to around €75.28 billion in the July-to-September period.

The biggest hit came from a €6.4 billion goodwill impairment at Porsche, Volkswagen's sports car and SUV subsidiary. The non-cash write-down reflected lower expectations for Porsche's future performance and significantly reduced Volkswagen's operating profit.

Porsche was also one of the main reasons for Volkswagen's quarterly loss a year earlier. The luxury brand, once a major profit driver for the group, has been struggling for some time, hit by a slump in China, US tariff policy and changes to its electric vehicle strategy. Porsche's financial performance has stabilized recently.

Vehicle deliveries continue to fall

Volkswagen's vehicle deliveries fell 14.3% year-on-year to 1.89 million in the third quarter. The group came under particular pressure in China, a key market, where deliveries dropped 38.5% to just under 406,000 vehicles.

The group's brands delivered around 6 million vehicles to customers in the first nine months of the year, down 9%, or around 600,000 vehicles, from the same period a year earlier.

Volkswagen management, led by chief executive Oliver Blume, significantly lowered its earnings forecast for the year in mid-September. The group now expects an operating profit margin of no more than 1% of revenue in 2026, down from its previous forecast range of 4% to 5.5%. Its operating margin was 2.8% in 2025.

Volkswagen expects revenue of around €315 billion in 2026, roughly in the middle of its previous forecast range. The company had already lowered its revenue outlook in July, abandoning its earlier expectation of growth of up to 3%. It now forecasts revenue to remain stable at best, but says it could fall by as much as 3%.

Revenue totalled €321.9 billion last year.