FRANKFURT—German car maker Volkswagen AG confirmed its full-year forecast Friday and said profits and revenue jumped in the first nine months of the year, helped by rising vehicle sales, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Volkswagen said profit after tax rose to €4.03 billion ($5.61 billion) from €655 million a year earlier. Revenue in the nine months to Sept. 30 came in at €92.55 billion, up nearly 20% from €77.16 billion a year earlier.
The company said it anticipates 2010 deliveries to customers will be significantly higher than in 2009, "due among other factors to the positive business growth in China."
Volkswagen, with a stable of brands that includes Audi AG, Skoda, Seat and Bentley, as well as its own VW brand, earlier this year stated that its wants to overtake Toyota Motor Corp. to become the world's largest auto maker.
Volkswagen warned, however, that growth will slow somewhat in the fourth quarter of 2010. The muted growth outlook for the remainder of the year echoes recent comments by company executives that several of the world's major auto markets have started to show some weakness after months of rising sales.
As in previous quarters, favorable exchange rates boosted earnings and Volkswagen said it expected that will continue to be the case in 2010. With the relative weakness of the euro against the dollar, earnings generated in the U.S. and China are inflated when converted into the common currency. The Chinese Renminbi is tied to the dollar.
Operating profit in the first three quarters of the year jumped to €4.83 billion, up more than three-times the €1.52 billion achieved in the same period a year earlier. Pretax profit also soared to €5.44 billion from €1.07 billion.
Volkswagen said that pretax profit was boosted by €863 million in contributions from equity-accounted investments—which include joint ventures in the booming Chinese market—and "measurements of put and call options related to the takeover of sports car maker Porsche.
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