Škoda Auto significantly boosts operating profit, revenue in first half of 2021

Škoda Auto increased its year-on-year sales revenue by 35.2 percent in the first half of 2021, reaching EUR 10.2 billion. Worldwide deliveries rose by a fifth in year-on-year terms and return on sales by 9.6 percent.

Despite complications stemming from the global coronavirus pandemic and a shortage of semi-conductors, the Volkswagen-owned Czech car manufacturer has even managed to improve on the results of the pre-pandemic year 2019, CEO Thomas Schäfer announced.

Operating profit rose by 327.2 percent to EUR 974 million during the first half of this year, with the company’s return on sales growing by nearly a tenth.

Board Member for Finance and IT Klaus-Dieter Schürmann said that the company’s tight cost control and further optimisation measures, especially in sales, were behind the significant increase in operating profit and sales revenue in the first half of 2021.

“Škoda Auto is sustainably profitable with a return on sales of 9.6%, and the operating business is extremely robust. This gives me confidence for the second half of the year. We are maintaining our high level of cost discipline.”

The Czech car manufacturer has delivered 515,300 cars to customers so far in 2021 – a year-on-year increase of 20.8 percent. The most significant rise in deliveries was registered in the Russian market (54.3 percent) and in Eastern Europe (35 percent). In Western Europe the car manufacturers’ deliveries grew by nearly a third, while those in Central Europe saw a 15.4 percent rise. However, for the Chinese market, deliveries fell by a whopping 43.1 percent, mainly due to the ongoing shortage in semi-conductors.

Škoda manufacturing plants have been forced to cancel some shifts this year due to the semi-conductor shortage. According to a forecast produced by chip manufacturer Flex, the automotive industry may face a shortage of semiconductors until at least the middle of 2022, possibly until 2023.

The most commonly delivered model was the Octavia, of which 121,000 have been delivered to various markets so far this year, followed by the Karoq SUV (75,500) and the smaller sub-compact SUV Kamiq (73,700).

The onset of the coronavirus pandemic saw Škoda close its manufacturing plants for several weeks in 2020. This year production was almost completely halted for a period of two weeks due to the semi-conductor shortage.