German automaker Volkswagen Group finished the third quarter of 2026 with a net loss of €5.82 billion compared to €1.07 billion a year earlier. The sharp deterioration in financial results was caused by large asset write-downs of Porsche, falling demand in China, and business restructuring costs.
Volkswagen Group announced this on October 29 in its financial report for the first nine months of 2026. The results were also covered by the German publication Tagesschau.
The group's operating loss for July–September was €5.86 billion versus €1.3 billion for the same period last year. Quarterly revenue decreased by 6.3% to €75.3 billion. Overall, for the nine months, Volkswagen's operating profit collapsed by almost 99%, from €5.4 billion to €71 million.
The biggest blow to the financial figures came from Porsche-related write-downs. Due to worsening prospects of the sports car manufacturer, Volkswagen reduced the book value of that business by €6.4 billion. Another approximately €1 billion was written off due to asset impairments in China.
In total, one-time expenses and write-downs in the third quarter reached €7.8 billion. They also include costs related to the planned sale of a Volkswagen plant in Osnabrück. Excluding exceptional items, the group's operating return on sales for the nine months was 3.8%.
However, Volkswagen's problems are not limited to accounting write-downs. The group is losing ground in the Chinese market, where local manufacturers are intensifying price competition. Additional pressure comes from American import tariffs and the increasing share of electric vehicles in sales, since their profitability is still lower than that of vehicles with internal combustion engines.
Volkswagen CFO Arno Antlitz admitted that current profitability is insufficient to finance long-term investments in new technologies. According to him, the company needs to accelerate cost cutting, simplify the model range, and improve plant efficiency.
The group confirmed a lowered full-year forecast for 2026. Volkswagen expects annual revenue of around €315 billion and operating return on sales of no more than 1%. For comparison, before the September update, the company had expected profitability in the range of 4–5.5%.
Management continues to implement a large-scale cost-saving and restructuring program that includes cutting up to 100,000 jobs by 2030. The future of several German production sites also remains under review.
As previously reported "Course of Ukraine", in the third quarter Volkswagen's global vehicle deliveries fell by 14.3%, the largest drop in four years. The worst situation was in China, where sales fell by almost 39%. The published financial report showed how much this deterioration affected the results of Europe's largest automaker.
Source: Volkswagen Group, Tagesschau, Financial Times
