Škoda Auto's operating profit down 4.1% to CZK 18.2bn in 2012

Wolfsburg, Germany/Mlada Boleslav, March 14 (CTK) - The largest Czech car maker Skoda Auto saw its operating profit fall by 4.1 percent to EUR712m (around Kc18.2bn) last year and sales increased by 1.7 percent to EUR10.44bn (around Kc267bn), the German group Volkswagen (VW) said in a statement yesterday.

Skoda Auto announced earlier that it sold a record 939,200 cars last year, which was 6.8 percent more on the year.

Car sales increased in all markets last year except for Western Europe.

The firm sold 879,200 cars in 2011. It wants to raise annual sales to 1.5 million units by the year 2018.

In February this year, Skoda Auto sold 67,100 cars, an annual drop of 6.9 percent, Skoda Auto told CTK in a press release yesterday.

January-February sales reached 136,600 cars, 10,900 fewer in annual terms, which the firm assigned to the launch of the production of the third-generation Octavia, the best-selling brand, and lower sales in some of the markets in Europe.

Skoda sold 25,500 cars in Western Europe in February, 2,200 fewer year-on-year.

Sales increased by 0.2 percent to 9,900 cars in Germany, the second largest market of Skoda Auto. Its market share grew to 4.9 percent.

February sales in Eastern Europe dropped by 200 units to 8,700 and in Central Europe by 1,500 to 9,500 cars in annual terms.

In China, the biggest market of Skoda Auto, car sales increased by 600 units to 17,700.

The firm expects that car sales will be growing after the introduction of eight new models this year.

Once production of the Octavia and its variants is running at full capacity and their sales are on, the firm will see the corresponding positive effects, said board chairman Winfried Vahland.

Skoda Auto sold 27,000 Octavias, 15,500 Fabias, 8,800 Superbs, 5,700 Yeti cars, 2,400 Roomsters, 4,100 Rapid cars and 3,700 Citigo cars in February. Demand for Fabias and Octavias was 21.6 and 19.1 percent lower, respectively. Roomster and Yeti sales dropped as well. Demand for Superbs rose by 17.9 percent.

VW said yesterday car output posted a rise of 4.6 percent to 943 million units last year. Operating costs were cut but marketing costs grew. The share of operating profit fell to 6.8 from 7.2 percent of sales in 2011.