FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Volkswagen cut its outlook for deliveries on Thursday, toned down sales expectations and warned of cost cuts as an ongoing shortage of chips caused it to report lower-than-expected operating profit for the third quarter.
“Following a record result in the first half of the year, the semiconductor bottlenecks in the third quarter made it abundantly clear to us that we are not yet resilient enough to fluctuations in capacity utilization,” Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz said.
“This clearly shows that we must continue to work resolutely on improving our cost structures and productivity in all areas.”
Third-quarter operating profit at Europe’s largest carmaker came in at 2.8 billion euros ($3.25 billion), down 12% versus last year and lower than the 2.99 billion Refinitiv forecast.
As a result of the shortage, the group, which has outlined an ambitious roadmap to become the world leader in electric vehicle (EV) sales, now expects deliveries in 2021 to be in line with the previous year, having previously forecast a rise.
(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Riham Alkousaa and Emma Thomasson)
