Porsche profit drops 83pc

DOWN TIMES: Porsche has reported an 83 per cent fall in its six-month profit.

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A dip in sales and costs from its failed attempt to take over Volkswagen pushed sports car maker Porsche's six-month net profit down by 83 percent.

The maker of the 911, Cayenne and Panamera, said Wednesday that it earned 957 million euros ($NZ1.84 billion) in the first six months of its fiscal year ending January 31. That's well below the 5.5 billion euros it reported the same time a year earlier.

Investors were not impressed, sending Porsche shares down nearly 1.3 percent to 43.21 euros in Frankfurt trading as the wider DAX gained nearly half a percent.

Porsche had launched an ambitious takeover of Volkswagen last year only to see it fail as Volkswagen, Europe's biggest auto maker by sales, mounted its own acquisition of Porsche.

The subsequent failure by Porsche caused it to post its first loss since 1994 after it was forced to write down options on VW shares it held.

Likewise, Porsche said it expects the fallout from the deal to cause a second annual loss, noting in its report that "forecasts are for an overall negative result of a low single-digit billion-euro figure" to be incurred.

Sales of its cars were down 1.7 percent in the half-year, with 33,670 cars delivered.

The automaker's Cayenne, an SUV-inspired model, was its best-selling model, with 13,454 cars sold though that was a decline of 19.8 percent from a year earlier.

Declines were reported in all of its key markets, including North America and Europe.

The sporty and expensive 911 saw its sales drop nearly 45 percent with 7,493 of the cars sold. Its two-seat Boxster model gained 11.3 percent with nearly 4,400 of them sold in the six-month period.

Looking ahead, Porsche Automobil Holding SE, based in Stuttgart, expects sales "to pick up" as it makes more of its four-seat Panamera models available, with an eye to stabilizing and "rise slightly."

- AP