Porsche Holding Salzburg overcomes the corona year

2020: Porsche Holding Salzburg overcomes the corona year

• Sales of new cars fell by 14.4 per cent to 653,300 vehicles due to the Covid-19 situation
• A stable year for used cars with 218,900 sales (-1.7 per cent)
• The number of employees increased to 33,000 (+3.6 per cent)
• An increase in market performance in most of the 29 countries in which Porsche Holding Salzburg is active in terms of wholesale
• A strong brand presence in Austria

Vienna, 15 December 2020 - Porsche Holding Salzburg (PHS) can look back on an extraordinary year. All 29 countries in which the company is active in automotive wholesale and retail have been subject to supply stoppages or temporary restrictions in the commercial and service business sectors.

"There is not a single country where we have not been affected by the consequences of the coronavirus", said CEO of the Porsche Holding Salzburg Management Board, Dr Hans Peter Schützinger, today at the traditional annual press conference in MOON CITY VIENNA, which this year for the first time was also broadcast to the business editorial offices via livestream. "With this in mind, we have managed the crisis well, even though we had to accept significant losses in terms of new car sales and turnover as a result."

Challenges that had to be overcome in 2020 included:

• Following the switch to the new WLTP consumption measurement method in previous years, the corona crisis was added to the mix this year with a sharp slump in passenger vehicle markets.
• This was followed by the launch of the Volkswagen ID.3, the first fully electric model from Volkswagen, which is based on the new Modular Electrification Toolkit (MEB) and required the sales side of our operations to make preparations in terms of training, service and charging infrastructure.
• And finally, it was important to serve the interests of customers who, during the Covid-19 period, were avoiding public transport and again increasingly looking for their own mobility solutions. 

The most important PHS key figures extrapolated to the 2020 calendar year

While new car markets worldwide decreased by 16 per cent this year, the decline in Europe was significantly greater at 24.2 per cent. A similar situation was encountered in Austria, where the passenger vehicle market actually fell by 25.6 per cent.

PHS fared better in the 29 countries in which it is active in the automotive trade.

• Here, new car sales for the Volkswagen Group brands decreased by only 14.4 per cent to around 653,300 units; to a lesser extent therefore than in the respective overall markets. As a result, market performance in virtually all PHS regions was increased and market shares were gained.
• In the used car business, PHS can look back on a much more stable year in its countries and expects to sell around 218,900 vehicles by the end of the year, which is just 1.7 per cent less than in the previous year.
• At the end of 2020, PHS will employ 33,000 people worldwide, which corresponds to an increase of 3.6 per cent.
• The number of retail dealerships rose to 530 (+36), which explains the increase in employees.

The Porsche Bank Group continued to expand its position as a financial services provider in 2020

• With 1.9 million contracts in stock, this year's growth amounted to around 3 per cent.
• 47 per cent of all Volkswagen Group vehicles are financed by the company in the 15 countries in which Porsche Bank operates.
• In 2020 the total assets for the entire Porsche Bank Group stood at 6.8 billion euros.
• It employs around 1,500 employees in Austria and its foreign markets.

Austrian passenger vehicle market 1-11/2020

With 224,968 new registrations, the total Austrian passenger vehicle market fell by 26.6 per cent in the period from January to November 2020 due to the consequences of the Covid-19 crisis.

The Volkswagen Group brands increased their market share in Austria to 37 per cent (+2.1 percentage points), thereby managing the crisis year better than the rest of the market.

With a strong month of November despite the second lockdown, the Volkswagen Group brands in Austria succeeded in increasing their new registrations by 5.3 per cent and achieving a November market share of 38.1 per cent despite an overall market decline of 13.8 per cent.

The Volkswagen Group brands were thus able to increase their cumulative market share by 2.1 percentage points to 37 per cent, despite a decline in volume of 22.2 per cent to 83,276 new vehicles; thereby achieving a new market share record.

3 group brands leading the way, 8 models in the Top 10 (as of 1-11/2020)

This year Volkswagen again topped the rankings of the most popular 3 brands in Austria as of the end of November, followed by ŠKODA and SEAT.

Volkswagen

In November the new ID.3 came in third behind the Golf and Octavia, also helping

e-vehicles to a 10.3 per cent market share in that month. In doing so, the ID.3, which has only been available on the market for a few weeks, made the leap to the fourth place in the ranking of electric vehicles as of 1-11/2020.

Having a total of 6 models among the Top 10 at the end of November, the Volkswagen brand remains the undisputed market leader in 2020, and has occupied this position since 1957 without interruption: Golf (2nd), Polo (3rd), T-Roc (6th), T-Cross (7th), VW Bus (8th) and Tiguan (9th).

With a record market share of 9.8 per cent (+1.4 percentage points), the ŠKODA brand consolidated its Number 2 position on the Austrian car market, and two of its models occupied the respectable 1st (Octavia) and 4th (Fabia) positions.

SEAT secured the much-acclaimed 3rd place in the brand ranking at the end of November and increased its market share (excluding Cupra) by 0.4 percentage points to a new record level of 6.6 per cent.

The Audi premium brand succeeded in significantly increasing its market performance this year, not only in November with a 5.7 per cent market share, but also cumulatively. At the end of November, it had managed to increase its market share by 0.7 percentage points to 4.5 per cent.

The Porsche sports car brand even managed to increase its volume during this crisis year and, with 1,318 new registrations by the end of November, it is heading towards a new record year.

The Bentley and Lamborghini luxury brands are sold through Exclusive Cars Vienna in both Austria and the CEE countries. Despite this difficult year, 209 Lamborghini cars have been delivered so far; only 6 per cent less than in the previous year. At Bentley, deliveries decreased by around one third to 142 vehicles.

The Ducati motorcycle brand had registered 618 new registrations by the end of November, a decrease of 19 per cent compared to the same period of the previous year.

PHS market expectations for the 2020 calendar year

"We predict that the passenger car market in Austria will achieve around 245,000 new registrations in 2020. These are the lowest market figures since 1987", said Dr Hans Peter Schützinger, adding, "in this difficult year, we expect to achieve a little more than 90,000 registrations with the Volkswagen Group brands in Austria and to finish the year with the highest market share value in our history (36.7 per cent). In view of the difficult background conditions, we are satisfied with this result."

Development of different drive types (1-11/2020)

In terms of drive systems, 2020 saw a clear shift towards alternative forms of propulsion. While the share of diesel vehicles in the overall market fell by 1.2 percentage points to 37 per cent and the share of petrol-powered vehicles even decreased by 9.8 percentage points to 44.2 per cent, the share held by alternative drive systems more than doubled to 18.8 per cent (+11.1 percentage points). As a result, new registrations of alternative drive systems also increased by approximately 18,500 units in the year-on-year comparison.

The alternative drive systems can be divided up as follows:

• Pure electric vehicles: 12,581 units. At 5.6 per cent, the market share has doubled.
• Models with hybrid drives achieved a market share of 13 per cent (+8.2 percentage points). However, when it comes to hybrid models, the Statistisches Zentralamt (Statistics Austria) does not distinguish between mild and plug-in hybrids.
• Natural gas CNG models achieved a market share of 0.2 per cent in line with the previous year.

E-mobility:

The Volkswagen Group is clearly committed to the Paris climate targets. By 2050 the entire Group will be carbon neutral - including both the vehicles and all the plants and processes. According to current planning, by 2025 the Group will have invested almost 73 billion euros in the forward-looking topics of electromobility, digitalization and hybridisation. Of this, 35 billion euros will be invested in electric mobility alone. Worldwide, the Volkswagen Group plans to launch 75 pure e-models across all brands by 2029 - as well as a further 60 hybrid vehicles.

The Volkswagen Group already offers its customers an attractive range of electric vehicles. The first models on the new MEB platform, the ID.3 and soon the ID.4, are currently expanding the electric vehicle portfolio. In addition to the electric vehicles already on the market, in 2021 ŠKODA will add the Enyaq iV and the CUPRA el-Born; Audi the Q4 e-tron and e-tron GT; and Porsche the Taycan Cross Turismo. Further e-models will follow.

Failed attempt to green the NOVA Austrian standard fuel consumption tax in a revenue-neutral manner

Tax increase for almost all new cars with internal combustion engines 

As a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, PHS is clearly committed to the Paris climate goals and to the complete decarbonisation of its vehicle fleet by 2050. "With this in mind, we also welcome appropriate control measures for the successive greening of the new car market and for the reduction of CO2 emissions", said Dr Schützinger, adding, "the recently adopted new NOVA regulations, however, will not accurately achieve these goals, and we were very surprised by two points. Firstly, the lack of a transformation path in the unexpectedly-met decision to introduce the NOVA for commercial vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes. In the absence of alternatives, and in already difficult times, traders and commercial customers will face considerable additional costs in the future when it comes to vehicles required for the exercise of their professions. These additional costs will inevitably have to be borne by their customers. Secondly, we are critical of the government's lack of communication with the advocacy groups. This has led to enormous anger and frustration within the industry."

Investments in 2020

Despite the lockdown and the associated loss of revenue, PHS continued its 2020 growth initiative and its investment projects.

• Portugal: expansion of the brand portfolio in wholesale and retail with the SEAT and CUPRA brands.
• Japan: takeover of the Group's own Audi retail trade with 20 Audi dealerships in Tokyo and Osaka.
• Italy: takeover of the Erre Esse dealer group in Turin with five Porsche dealerships.
• Germany: takeover of the five Auto Wichert locations in Hamburg.
• Completion of PHS's largest retail investment at Porsche Wien Liesing, where over the past five years exclusive brand worlds have been created for all the Group's passenger vehicle brands, including Ducati. This took place in accordance with all the latest building standards, even while operations remained ongoing. A total of 70 million euros was invested.

Two new mobility products from Porsche Bank

With the Porsche Bank Shop and the autoabo service, Porsche Bank offers two new unconventional mobility solutions for newer used vehicles.

The Porsche Bank Shop enables consistent digital settlement for the leasing of former Porsche Bank company cars. Porsche Bank's autoabo service involves an all-inclusive offer with flexible terms for Europcar Austria's car rental returns in four vehicle categories.

News about the new MOON brand

Based in Salzburg, MOON is a brand of Allmobil GmbH, which develops and brings to the market Porsche Holding Salzburg's future and innovation topics across all brands. MOON offers customers sustainable, intelligent and data-driven energy solutions. From the Wallbox, which includes a home storage and photovoltaic system, to their quick-charging station. In addition, advice is also available on complete solutions, with everything coming from a single source.

Sales of charging products increased by more than 200 per cent in 2020. New markets were rolled out, and this year Croatia and Portugal joined the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia and Hungary. FC Bayern Munich also built a powerful MOON charging park for their players in front of the club's training facilities.

MOONCITY VIENNA was the venue for today's press conference

In mid-September, MOONCITY VIENNA, an e-mobility pop-up store, opened an extraordinary experience centre for e-mobility and charging infrastructure on Vienna's Mariahilferstrasse. Along with MOONCITY SALZBURG, which opened at the end of 2019, MOONCITY VIENNA represents another milestone for MOON, a Porsche Holding Salzburg brand. MOONCITY VIENNA provides comprehensive information on the topic of e-mobility and will therefore contribute to fundamental and systemic change in the direction of alternative drive systems.

To date, around 25,000 visitors have been welcomed to the MOONCITY VIENNA

e-mobility pop-up store.

Austrian premieres at MOONCITY VIENNA

In the e-mobility pop-up store, spread out on around 1,500 m2 of floor space, visitors can discover everything to do with the topic of e-mobility. Here, the latest electric innovations from the Volkswagen Group brands can be experienced under one roof - including a number of highlights and Austrian premieres:

• VW ID.4 and VW ID.3 police car
• Audi e-tron GT concept and Audi e-tron SB
• ŠKODA ENYAQ iV
• CUPRA Leon e-HYBRID
• SEAT Mii electric and SEAT MÓ e-Scooter 125
• Porsche Taycan

Due to the surprisingly large number of people visiting the site, the e-mobility focus at the MOONCITY Vienna pop-up store, which was originally planned to run until the end of the year, has now been extended until the end of June 2021.

Outlook for 2021

In the first few months of 2021, Porsche Holding Salzburg expects a very slow recovery in the current market environment for a majority of its trading countries.

In Austria, due to the changes to the NOVA announced for 1 July 2021, advance purchases of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (up to 3.5 t) with internal combustion engines are to be expected in the first half of the year - and this is likely to be the case for all vehicle classes.

The market will then become subdued in the second half of the year.

PHS expects a total passenger vehicle market of no more than 290,000 new cars for 2021. This will be significantly lower than the average of the last five years, which came to almost 308,500 vehicles.

E-mobility will experience further significant market growth in Austria due to both the rapidly growing range of models and the currently available subsidies. PHS expects its e-car sales to triple in 2021 alone. The product range will continue to be highly attractive in 2021 as a result of numerous new models from the Volkswagen Group brands.