'Strong' Porsche Sales

Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Stuttgart, has reported a strong upward trend in the vehicle operations of its holding, Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, in the first half of the fiscal year of 2009/10.

After the unit sales of Porsche AG had fallen in the first four months by 25 percent on the same period of the prior year, the decline should be cut back to just minus 3.1 percent for the full six months, based on preliminary figures.

Sales are expected to account for approx. 33,200 units, revenues will show a decrease of 3.3 percent to Euro 2.9 billion.

CEO, Professor Dr Martin Winterkorn, reported this to the annual general meeting of Porsche SE, held today in the Porsche-Arena in Stuttgart.

Although the new Panamera has only been on sale since September 2009, with its launch only taking place in December in some regions, the fourth model in the Porsche product range achieves unit sales of approx. 8,200 in the first six months, based on preliminary figures.

The Cayenne remains the best selling model with approximately 13,100 units sold, reflecting a fall in unit sales of 22 percent.

According to the preliminary figures, approx. 7,400 units of the 911 will be sold, representing a decline of 45%.

The Boxster and the Cayman models are expected to record sales growth of 14% to approx. 4,500 units.

An analysis of the sales territories reveals that the situation on the North American market remains difficult. Whereas the unit sales of Porsche will fall by 16% in the region to a prospective volume of approximately 11,000 vehicles, the drop in Europe should no more than 6 percent. Here the preliminary figures reveal sales of approximately 10,200 units.

In the rest of the world, sales of Porsche have actually grown again. According to the preliminary reports, unit sales in the first six months of the current fiscal year come to approximately 12,000 vehicles, reflecting growth of 18%.

Manufacturing output on the basis of the preliminary figures for the period should reach a total of 40,877 units, almost reaching the same level as the prior year, indicating a fall of 1.9%.

Up until the end of the period under report 16,979 units of the Cayenne and 9,882 of the new Panamera will have rolled off the assembly line in Leipzig. In the same time then 8,746 units of the 911 were manufactured. A total of 5,270 units of the Boxster will be manufactured in the period.

On the basis of the strong performance in the second quarter, Porsche continues to assume that unit sales for the full fiscal year 2009/10 will exceed the prior-year figure of 75,238 vehicles.

(PR/BMcC)