A Vehicle History
displaying low mileage. Odometer readings may be rolled back. Its illegal
in most state, but its easy. It is still a common occurance in used high
milage vehicles.
Sellers will not or cannot show you the repair orders or the identity of
former owner(s).
A vehicle shipped from out-of-state or received in trade from another dealer.
What is a Vehicle VIN Number
What is a VIN Number and why do we use it? The Vehicle
Identification Number (VIN) was originally described in ISO Standard
3779 in February 1977. This multi-digit VIN was designed to identify vehicles,
trailers, motorcycles and mopeds.
Volkswagen Profit
Date: Apr 19, 2005
Contributor: Jamie Wirta
Volkswagen's Pischetsrieder to Report `Unsatisfactory' Profit
Volkswagen AG, Europe's biggest carmaker, tomorrow may report a 63 million-euro ($82 million) profit for the first quarter, a result Chief Executive Bernd Pischetsrieder said is ``unsatisfactory.''
Net income at Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen rose from 26 million euros in the year-earlier period, the lowest quarterly profit in a decade, according to a survey of seven analysts by Bloomberg News. Pischetsrieder at the time called last year's results ``miserable.''
Volkswagen, whose shares have lost almost half their value since 2001, plans to cut 3.1 billion euros in costs and has frozen salaries in Germany to stem a two-year slide in earnings. The size of the Western European auto market, where the maker of Golf and Passat cars gets more than half its sales, shrank 2.5 percent in the quarter.
``Investors don't want to be disappointed anymore,'' said Thomas Koerfgen, who helps oversee $3.9 billion, including shares in Volkswagen, as head of equities at SEB Investment in Frankfurt. ``Management has at least identified what they need to do.''
Shares of Volkswagen have fallen 0.3 percent this year, giving the company a market value of 13.4 billion euros, compared with a 3.5 percent decline in the Bloomberg Autos Index. Last year, Volkswagen shares plunged 25 percent. Of the 41 analysts who follow the German company, 17 rate the shares ``buy,'' 15 recommend selling the stock and 10 say ``hold.''
Cost Focus
``We're concentrating on costs right now,'' said Pischetsrieder, 57, in an interview in Copenhagen on April 4. ``It doesn't make any sense to sell cars at a loss.'' Earnings and sales growth will pick up in the second half, he said.
Pischetsrieder, a former Bayerische Motoren Werke AG Chief Executive Officer, declined to comment on first-quarter results beyond his March 8 statement at the 2004 annual earnings conference that they wouldn't be satisfactory.
General Motors Corp., the world's biggest automaker, will likely report today a first-quarter loss of at least $850 million. Ford Motor Co., the world's third-largest automaker, probably will report tomorrow its first drop in profit in five quarters as sales of its cars and trucks fell.
Pischetsrieder was paid 2.6 million euros last year, including salary, bonus and benefits. Volkswagen disclosed his individual pay in the 2004 annual report for the first time. It previously reported total compensation for the management board. In 2004, the seven-member board was paid 11.6 million euros compared with 13.8 million euros a year earlier.
Return on Sales
Volkswagen's estimated return on sales for the first quarter is 1.8 percent, according to the Bloomberg survey, compared with 9.3 percent in the quarter ended Dec. 31 at Toyota Motor Corp., the world's most profitable major carmaker. The German company will report first-quarter revenue of 21.8 billion euros, little changed from 21.9 billion euros a year earlier, the survey showed.
Volkswagen's sales in Western Europe fell 2.1 percent in the first quarter and its market share was unchanged at 17 percent. The market share of PSA Peugeot Citroen, Europe's second-largest carmaker, declined 0.3 percentage point to 14.3 percent, while Renault SA's share of the market was unchanged at 10 percent.
In the U.S., Volkswagen sales fell 14 percent in the quarter. In China, its largest market after Germany, sales dropped 6.1 percent to 655,118 vehicles last year, as the market grew 15 percent. Sales in China may fall to 600,000 units this year as 1980s-era models such as the Santana fail to lure buyers from General Motors and Toyota, Pischetsrieder said on Feb. 1.
The company's market share in China shrank by half to 25 percent over the past five years as General Motors and Toyota expanded production and lowered prices. Volkswagen plans to spend 6 billion euros expanding factories to double production in China.
`Miserable, Unacceptable'
``Last year was miserable, this year will be unacceptable,'' said Stephen Cheetham, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in London. ``There's some room for a small improvement in earnings this year.''
A renewed decline in the dollar against the euro will crimp profit by a `significant amount'' this year after reducing earnings by 800 million euros last year, Volkswagen Chief Financial Officer Hans Dieter Poetsch said in March. The company had a loss of 1 billion euros in the U.S. last year because of the effects of the exchange rate and an aging model line-up.
The euro has fallen by 3.3 percent against the dollar this year. What's more, steel manufacturers including ThyssenKrupp AG, Arcelor SA and Salzgitter have all raised prices this year, driving up the cost of production for carmakers.
Sales won't decline this year in the U.S. because of the new Jetta compact sedan and new Passat, Pischetsrieder said in April. In Europe, the Passat, Golf Plus and Fox subcompact should improve Volkswagen's market share, he added.
New Passat
``The focus now is on the Passat which is the second-most important model for them after the Golf,'' said Michael Schneider, a Frankfurt-based fund manager at Deka Investment, which oversees $144 billion euros in assets including Volkswagen shares. ``Volkswagen is starting to make improvements.''
The number of workers the company employs has climbed 5.6 percent since 2000 to 342,502 people last year as car production fell 1.2 percent to 5.09 million vehicles in the same period.
Volkswagen, founded in 1937, will pay a dividend of 1.05 euros this year, unchanged from last year. The company has a dividend yield of 3.15 percent, compared with 4.91 percent at DaimlerChrysler AG and 7.64 percent at General Motors.
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