Volkswagen's 2022 earnings margin at 8.1%

Volkswagen AG's earnings margin was at the upper end of the forecast for 2022, at 8.1%, with sales and earnings above 2021 levels despite supply-chain turmoil dragging its net cash flow far below target, the carmaker said on Tuesday.

In March of last year, Volkswagen had a 7.5% margin, with sales beating 2021 figures at around 279 billion euros, compared to 250.2 billion the year before, with earnings of 22.5 billion euros $24.11 billion.

The net cash flow came to only around 5 billion euros, under the target of 2021's 8.6 billion euros. The company blamed an unstable supply chain that left it sitting on high inventories of unfinished goods, supplies and materials.

The current planning for 2023 suggests that the year-end 2022 increase in working capital will reverse itself during the year, it added in its statement.

In the second half of 2022, Volkswagen Group deliveries were up 12%, but full-year deliveries were the lowest in over a decade, as COVID 19 lock-downs in China and the war in Ukraine resulted in a 12% increase in supply chains.

In October, Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz said that the carmaker had 150,000 unfinished vehicles in its inventory and was stocking up on supplies to protect against shortages, pushing up prices and cutting costs to make up for lower unit sales.

Ford Motor Co last week attributed a fall in quarterly profit to supply-chain issues, including the ongoing lack of chips, leading to lower than expected volumes, and forecast a lower pre-tax profit for 2023.

Volkswagen warned in January that the outlook for 2023 remained clouded by weak economies and supply-chain shortages.