Škoda Auto’s sales increased by 35.2 percent in the first half of this year to almost 10.2 billion euros (about 260 billion CZK). Worldwide deliveries of cars to customers in the first half of the year increased by 20.8 percent compared to the same period last year to 515,300 cars, the company said in a press release today. Last year, the company’s overall result was affected by the coronavirus pandemic and closed production facilities for several weeks. This year, the situation is complicated by the lack of chips, so the company has to cancel a number of shifts, for two weeks it almost completely stopped production.
Compared to the same period last year, the operating result increased by 327.2 percent to 974 million euros (about CZK 24.8 billion). Investments, on the other hand, fell by 24.9 percent to 196 million euros (less than five billion CZK).
“We are looking back on a great first half of the year. Despite the shortage of semiconductors and the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, we even managed to surpass the results of 2019 before the pandemic.
The carmaker recorded a strong increase in car deliveries in the first half of the year in Russia, by 54.3 percent, in India by 31.2 percent, in Eastern Europe by 35 percent, and in Western Europe by 30.9 percent. In Germany, the world’s largest market, the carmaker improved by 19.4 percent to 75,900 vehicles compared to last year. In the domestic Czech market, deliveries to customers increased by 11.7 percent to 44,000 vehicles. In China, by contrast, deliveries to customers in the first half of 2021 fell by 43.1 percent to 44,000 vehicles.
The best-selling model in the first half of this year was traditionally the Octavia, of which the company delivered 121,000 to customers, up 9.3 percent year-on-year. The smallest year-on-year increase was recorded by the smallest SUV of the Kamiq brand, whose deliveries increased by 40.4 percent to 73,700 vehicles. All current models recorded an increase in sales.
Last year, Škoda Auto delivered over one million cars worldwide. It operates three production plants in the Czech Republic, produces in China, Russia, Slovakia, and India, mostly through group partnerships, as well as in Ukraine and Kazakhstan in cooperation with local partners. It is active in more than 100 markets.