Daimler cancels the forecast for 2012. And industry leader volkswagen reports shrinking operating profit.
Daimler announced in stuttgart on wednesday evening: "in view of the significant deterioration in the market environment in key markets in recent months and intensified competition, daimler has adjusted its earnings expectations."
Originally, the figures were to be presented on thursday shortly before the start of the stock market in germany. An e-mail glitch in the USA forced an earlier announcement.
Daimler boss dieter zetsche still expects an operating profit of approximately 8 billion euros, which would be almost 9 percent below the previous year’s level. Swabia wants to counteract this with a savings program. Bottom line: daimler’s third-quarter earnings were down 11 percent to 1.2 billion euros. Operating income remained at 1.9 billion, which is a slight minus of two percent. Sales increased noticeably by 8 percent to 28.6 billion euros.
VW continues to set global records for deliveries and sales, but the weak european market and investments in new models pushed operating profit down by around one-fifth to 2.3 billion euros in the third quarter. Volkswagen’s bottom line was 11.3 billion euros (plus 59 percent) – although a large part of this is due to the complete takeover of sports car maker porsche. Their figures were included in VW’s balance sheet for the first time after the integration at the beginning of august.
France pledged state guarantees of up to seven billion euros to PSA peugeot citroen to secure the future of the finance division specializing in vehicle loans. Furthermore, the planned cooperation with the ailing general-motors subsidiary opel was concretized. Like the german automaker, PSA suffers from dependence on the european market. Third-quarter sales in the automotive division fell 8.5 percent, the second-largest european manufacturer after VW announced on wednesday. The company had announced plans to cut around 8,000 jobs and close a plant near paris. This meets with resistance from the unions.
Peugeot, citroen and opel to build vans, mid-size cars and small cars on four joint platforms in the future. PSA entered into an alliance with opel’s parent company GM at the beginning of the year. The cooperation is expected to save two billion dollars (1.5 billion euros) a year after five years at the latest.
Impact on current sites and jobs remains unclear. An opel spokesman in russelsheim said that no decisions have been made yet. Rhineland-palatinate’s minister president kurt beck (SPD) told the "allgemeine zeitung" in mainz (thursday): "russelsheim and kaiserslautern are certainly not on the brink of collapse."The employees of the two companies should not be played off against each other, said works council head wolfgang schafer-klug.
Ford plans to shut down production at its genk site in belgium by the end of 2014 due to the sales crisis. Talks to be held with employee representatives, ford europe announced in poland. Around 4300 employees plus some 5000 jobs dependent on the ford plant were affected. The CSC metea union spoke of a "bitter pill for the entire region".
The automaker wants to restructure its production in europe in response to the changed market, ford said in explaining the step. Production of the ford mondeo, s-max and galaxy models is to be relocated to valencia in spain, and from there production of the c-max and grand c-max is to be transferred to saarlouis in the saarland region of germany.