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| photo: Reuters
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In June, the carmaker already showed a year-on-year decline of only 16 percent after a fall of more than 45 percent in May.
The entire Volkswagen Group delivered 3.893 million cars to customers in the first half of the year. Its sales thus decreased by 27.4 percent year on year.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Škoda Auto had to shut down production for six weeks in all three domestic plants – in Mladá Boleslav, Kvasiny and Vrchlabí. Production started again only at the end of April.
Škoda Auto also manufactures in China, Russia, Slovakia, Algeria and India, mostly through group partnerships, as well as in Ukraine and Kazakhstan in cooperation with local partners.
Other companies are also having problems, laying off thousands of people
Mladá Boleslav’s Škoda is just one of many carmakers that are struggling with red numbers. On Friday, the German automobile concern Daimler announced an operating loss for the second half of the year of 1.68 billion euros (almost 45 billion crowns).
The successful head of Škoda ended abruptly, losing the power struggle |
However, the loss is lower than analysts expected. The group is now working to reduce costs and, according to sources from the company referred to by DPA, intends to eliminate up to 20,000 jobs in the coming years. It currently employs around 300,000 people.
Daimler said the results for the second quarter were supported by a surprisingly strong recovery in the car market and solid performance in June. “But we still have a lot of work to do,” said Ola Källenius, head of the company. He added that the company must continue to work on reducing costs and adjusting production capacity. Daimler will publish complete results for this year’s second quarter on Thursday next week.
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