BERLIN, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Volkswagen's third quarter (Q3) earnings were hit by a difficult transition to the new Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) certification standard, figures published on Tuesday by the German carmaker showed.
Quarterly Volkswagen vehicle sales and deliveries both declined to 2.584 million (2.642 million in Q3 2017) and 2.611 million (2.651 million in Q3 2017) respectively.
According to the Wolfsburg-based company, the development reflected productive delays which were caused by the European Union-wide introduction of WLTP back in September.
Operating profits before special items were recorded at 3.51 billion euros (3.98 billion U.S. dollars), marking a slump by 18.6 percent compared to the same period last year. However, gross revenue and operating profits after special items were still up at 55 billion euros (0.9 percent) and 2.711 billion euros (57.6 percent) for the carmaker in Q3.
Volkswagen further emphasized that it had continued to grow during the first nine months of the fiscal year and remained well on track to achieve its overall annual sales revenue and profit target.
Despite the switch to the new WLTP test procedure, which resulted in the anticipated temporary third-quarter decline in unit sales particularly in Europe, the Group's key figures for the first nine months are above the prior-year figures, a statement published online read.
Group sales revenue rose to 174.6 billion euros between January and September 2018, compared to the 170.1 billion euros during the same period in 2017. In the first nine months, the Volkswagen Group delivered 8.1 million vehicles to customers throughout the world, thus allowing the company to increase deliveries worldwide by 4.2 percent over the prior-year period.
"The development in the first nine months of the current fiscal year is encouraging. We are still facing major challenges, that we and the entire automotive sector have to overcome," Herbert Diess, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG, told press, noting that Volkswagen was currently in the "midst of a groundbreaking transformation."
Volkswagen employs more than 600,000 staff across the world and includes the brands Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Skoda, Seat, Bugatti, Lamborghini and Bentley, as well as a truck production unit. The DAX-listed automotive company achieved gross combined revenue over more than 230 billion euros in 2017.
