Porsche riding high on Cayenne and Panemera sales

Porsche have revealed a sevenfold surge in operating profit in the fiscal first quarter on demand for the Cayenne SUV and Panamera saloon.

Earnings before interest and tax advanced to 395 million euros ($526 million) between August and October from 52 million euros a year earlier while sales climbed 80% to 2.1 billion euros.

Deliveries of the Cayenne, Porsche’s best-selling model, more than doubled to 10,292 units, while the Panamera, which went on sale about a year ago, also almost doubled to 5,778 units. Porsche, which will switch to calendar-year reporting in 2011, expects a return on sales that is “clearly” more than 10% in the last five months of 2010.

“It’s a fairly good set of numbers and clearly highlights that Porsche’s core business is doing well,” said Alexis Albert, a Nomura Securities analyst in London with a “reduce” rating on the shares.

Porsche is in the process of merging with VW, Europe’s largest carmaker. VW acquired 49.9 percent of Porsche’s car-making unit after Porsche last year failed in a hostile takeover attempt for Wolfsburg-based VW.

Porsche’s first-quarter European deliveries rose 63 percent to 7,082 units, of which 2,318 were sold in Porsche’s German home-market while North American sales totalled 6,632 units.
“Porsche continues to be on a profitable growth course,” Matthias Mueller, head of the automotive division, said in a statement.

Volkswagen agreed to combine with Porsche in August 2009 after the sports-car maker’s debt tripled to more than 10 billion euros following a failed bid to buy VW by securing stock through options trading.

Source: Bloomberg