Porsche Holding Salzburg posts robust earnings in 2022 despite global crises, underscoring its ability to generate value

• Revenue reached a new record of 25.8 billion euros (+6.4%)  
• New car sales of 656,200 units slightly below previous year (-2.7%)
• Sales of used cars lower at 189,700 units (-11%)
• Broad strategic position with 531 dealerships worldwide (+6)
• Number of employees in 29 countries increased to nearly 34,900 (+2.6%)
• Reduction of high order backlog remains top priority for 2023
• Environment will remain challenging due to economic uncertainty
• "While 2022 was a turbulent year, our figures impressively proved our company's robustness and our considerable ability to generate value even in economically volatile times. Thanks to our high order backlog, we expect to see a turnaround in 2023 in the new vehicle registrations, which will allow us to move back into the black after three years. How many new vehicle registrations we will post at year-end continues to depend on deliveries and the overall economic situation," said Dr Hans Peter Schützinger, CEO of the PHS Management Board.  

Salzburg, 3 April 2023 - Porsche Holding Salzburg can be satisfied with its performance in 2022, a year shaped by the coronavirus pandemic plus global and economic crises. While the number of new and used vehicles sold remained significantly below pre-COVID levels for the third consecutive year, the Salzburg-based automotive retail company, which operates in 19 countries across three continents, further lifted revenue to above the 25-billion-euro mark for the first time. 

Porsche Holding Salzburg delivered a total of 656,200 new cars worldwide in wholesale and retail during the past financial year (-2.7%), while sales of used cars were 11% down on the previous year at 189,700 units due to a shortage of vehicles. The number of dealerships rose by six to a total of 531 - continuing Porsche's metropolitan strategy focusing on premium and luxury brands. The strategic acquisitions in retail operations raised the number of employees to 34,900 worldwide (+2.6%)

"2022 was a turbulent year. We achieved a very respectable result despite the geopolitical and economic instability that caused noticeable buyer restraint towards the end of the year precipitated by high inflation," said Dr Hans Peter Schützinger, CEO of the PHS Management Board. "Our new record revenue of 25.8 billion euros impressively proved our company's robustness and considerable ability to generate value even in economically volatile times," he added.

Porsche Holding Salzburg's international, forward-looking business model with its strong brands and innovative products as well as an efficient marketing organisation helped to make up for the fall in regional unit sales on the earnings side. This was assisted in no small measure by the focus on higher-margin vehicles in the premium and luxury segment as well as strict cost discipline and an energy efficiency programme. Porsche Holding Salzburg is "cautiously optimistic" for 2023. 

Outlook for 2023: "We project that our factories' delivery capacity will improve further this year and that the bottlenecks will gradually ease. Our number one priority is to reduce our high order backlog in the individual countries and the accumulation of vehicles to be exchanged. We expect to see a turnaround in 2023 in the new vehicle registrations, which will allow us to move back into the black after three years. How many new vehicle registrations we will post at year-end continues to depend on deliveries and the overall economic situation," said Dr Hans Peter Schützinger, sounding a note of caution. 

"While the existing order backlog provides a solid financial basis for the current year, we are coming up against buyer reluctance among retail and corporate customers. This is already very noticeable in a number of the regions in which we operate and we need to work on eliminating it." Notwithstanding this, Porsche Holding Salzburg is forging ahead with the transformation to e-mobility. "We will continue to focus on e-mobility. There is no way around this if we are to meet the climate and sustainability targets set. At the same time, however, we must remain sufficiently open to technological innovations and not categorically rule out electric fuels. These may represent an important addition to carbon-neutral operation of vehicles with combustion engines from 2035 and beyond."

Overall, Porsche Holding Salzburg enjoys a robust positioning for the future, but due to the global economic instability still has challenging months ahead of it. "We will remain flexible in our approach and focus in particular on boosting performance, on managing costs across all business areas and on our cash flow. This is necessary to drive the transformation of our organisation into the electric and digital age and safeguard our strategic investments in the global sales network," Dr Hans Peter Schützinger added.

Also in 2023, the topics of mobility services as well as sustainability, the environment and energy efficiency will become even more central to the activities of Porsche Holding Salzburg. As part of Earth Day 2023, all Porsche Holding Salzburg employees will once again take an hour in April under #Project1Hour to discuss ways to reduce carbon emissions and how they can help mitigate climate change. This initiative is taking place for the third time in a row.

Overview of key business areas:

Wholesale: Due to the difficult delivery situation, new car sales in the 21 wholesale markets in 2022 fell 4.1% short of the previous year's result with 307,300 vehicles sold. Unit sales rose in only a small number of markets such as Portugal and the overseas markets of Chile and Colombia. The number of employees in wholesale rose by 1.4% to 3,826, while wholesale revenue grew by 5% to 9.45 billion euros.

Retail: Porsche Holding Salzburg, which is active in the retail sector in 26 countries, delivered a total of 338,900 new cars (-1.5%) to customers despite a strained supply situation and varying economic conditions in regions around the world. Revenue grew by 7.4% to 18.6 billion euros in spite of the decrease in unit sales. 

It is worth noting that China with revenue of almost 4 billion euros (+22.5%) has replaced Germany (3.9 billion euros; +0.3%) as the highest-revenue retail market. In China, the Salzburg-based automotive retail company has 39 dealerships across four regions.

In addition, around 10,000 new car sales (-6.3%) were handled directly by the importer companies in the retail sector, for example in Chile, Singapore or smaller CEE countries.

Porsche Holding Salzburg continued its course of growth and investment with a sense of proportion in the third year of crisis and further expanded its presence in strategic markets such as China, Japan, Germany and Switzerland, where it entered the market with a Porsche dealership on Upper Lake Zurich. This acquisition increased the number of retail employees worldwide by 3.1% to 28,728.

"In 2023, we will expand our global retail network wherever we have prospects for growth. Especially in China, our highest-revenue retail market, we intend to continue the dealership expansions that had been deferred, now that the strict COVID-19 policy has ended. This year, for instance, we plan to open 7 additional Porsche dealerships there," said Dr Hans Peter Schützinger.    

Porsche Bank Group: The Porsche Bank Group, which is active in the financing, insurance and maintenance contract business in 15 countries, further expanded its leading position as a mobility financial services provider in 2022. A new all-time high was achieved with nearly 2 million contracts in the portfolio (+1.8% growth), and total assets of the entire Porsche Bank Group now stand at 7.1 billion euros. Almost 46% of all new vehicles delivered by Porsche Holding Salzburg in Austria are financed by the Porsche Bank Group. Porsche Bank has also been creating new mobility solutions with the sharetoo car subscription and car sharing services. In cooperation with Wiener Linien and the City of Vienna, the public electric car sharing service WienMobil Auto is growing, and by 2022 a total of 200 vehicles were available in 30 cities and municipalities - around 150 of them in Vienna. 

Porsche Informatik: Porsche Informatik is a subsidiary of Porsche Holding Salzburg with hubs in four countries (Austria, France, Slovenia and Romania). With more than 900 software developers and IT specialists, it performs around one million development hours and offers a total of 180 software solutions tailor-made for the automotive segment in 32 countries. A total of 30% of Porsche Informatik's developments are provided specifically for the Volkswagen Group. The sales volume of Porsche Informatik in 2022 is 148 million euros, which means that this has doubled in the last five years.

MOON POWER GmbH: The MOON POWER brand continued its growth trajectory in 2022 and currently does business in a total of 18 markets - with companies of its own in Austria and Germany. Its 60 employees deliver sustainable, smart, data-driven energy solutions from a single source. Since its foundation in 2019, over 4,000 charging stations, 70 photovoltaic systems and 25 energy storage systems have been installed. MOON POWER generated revenue of approximately 30 million euros in 2022. 

Key figures at PHS for the year 2022

Consolidated revenue  25.8 billion euros (+6.4%) 

New cars  656,200 (-2.7%) 

Used cars  189,700 (-11%) 

Dealerships  531 (+6)

Employees  34,900 (+2.6%)