According to this source, 50-year-old Schäfer will replace Bernhard Maier as head of Škoda Auto. In recent days, there has been speculation as a possible successor to Maier, among others, about Martin Jahn, who has currently ended up as executive vice president for sales and marketing of one of the Volkswagen Group’s joint ventures in China.
Maier was called to head the Czech carmaker in November 2015. Under his leadership, Škoda launched the Kodiaq, Karoq or Kamiq SUV models, and the company also focused on electromobility, digitization and connectivity.
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Volkswagen’s director Herbert Diess said in Saturday’s issue of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Skoda was “not aggressive enough” to compete with Koreans and French in terms of the volume of cars sold. “It is useless to us when Škoda develops to the third premium brand within the group,” he said. According to him, the Mladá Boleslav carmaker must strengthen its position in the segment of cost-effective cars.
The consequences of the covidu-19 pandemic hit Škoda Auto hard: the carmaker’s operating profit fell by almost three quarters in the first half to 228 million euros (roughly six billion crowns) from 824 million euros a year ago. Škoda Auto’s revenues fell by more than a quarter in the first half of the year to 7.5 billion euros from 10.2 billion euros a year ago.
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