Volkswagen has earned $ 12 billion in 2020, despite the pandemic

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The world’s largest carmaker said in a statement on Friday that it expects an operating profit of EUR 10 billion ($ 12.2 billion) by 2020, a performance helped by a strong end to the year.
After losing EUR 1.4 billion (USD 1.7 billion) in the first six months of 2020, Volkswagen (VLKAF) “It proved to be quite robust in the second half,” he added. Deliveries in the fourth quarter “continued to recover strongly” and exceeded the last three months.

Volkswagen earned almost twice as much money in 2019, making a profit of EUR 19.3 billion ($ 23.5 billion) on sales of EUR 252 billion ($ 306.6 billion). But the company’s shares rose as much as 6% in Frankfurt on Friday, suggesting investors expected an even more precipitous drop in revenue.

Car manufacturers suffered a collapse in sales and disruption of supply chains in the first months of the pandemic. They are currently facing a critical shortage of semiconductors that threatens hamstring production as the industry tries to recover.

Volkswagen had to adjust production to factories in China, North America and Europe this quarter and could lose 100,000 units, or about 4% of global quarterly production, due to component shortages, according to UBS analysts.

The German automaker, which also owns the Audi and Porsche brands, said last week that it had “slightly expanded” its share of the world car market in 2020. It delivered 9.3 million vehicles, down 15.2% from 2019. Deliveries were better in China, its largest market, down 9% compared to a 20% drop in Europe.

Deliveries of electric vehicles with batteries reached 231,600, more than three times the volume in 2019. Hybrid plug-in deliveries increased by 175% to 190,500 units.

It seems that traditional carmakers “can handle the transition to electric mobility much better than they feared,” senior Bernstein analyst Arndt Ellinghorst said in a note to customers on Friday. “Investors need to wake up to the overly low valuation of traditional carmakers, especially in the context of valuing any ‘new mobility,'” he added.

Despite making only 500,000 vehicles in 2020, it is a leader in electric cars adze (TSLA) worth $ 800 billion, eight times the market capitalization of Volkswagen.
In his first tweet this week, and perhaps as a sign of growing confidence in the German industrial giant, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess mentioned the company’s pressure on electric vehicles, labeling Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

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