Profits rise at Volkswagen and Ford’s Irish subsidiaries

The Volkswagen Group might have taken a hammering last year following the diesel emissions scandal but the money continued to roll in at the carmaker’s Irish subsidiary, with profits and revenues rising sharply in 2015.

New accounts just filed with the Companies Registration Office show turnover at Volkswagen Group Ireland Limited rose 31 per cent to €696 million in 2015, as against €531.8 million a year earlier. This comes after sales jumped by 23 per cent in 2014.

The carmaker's Irish unit, which also controls Irish operations for Audi, Skoda and Seat brands, saw pretax profits increase by 80 per cent to €6.5 million from €3.6 million, while operating profit rose to €7.4 million from €4.3 million.

Shareholders’ funds after tax amounted to €16.2 million, up from €13.5 million a year earlier.

New figures published by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (Simi) earlier this week showed new car sales advanced by 18 per cent in the 10 months to October.

Remained popular

Despite the emissions scandal, which broke last September, Volkswagen has remained popular with Irish buyers with the VW Golf the second best-selling car on the Irish market so far this year, behind the Hyundai Tucson, but ahead of the Ford Focus.

VW, which is currently the second most popular car brand overall in Ireland, said it expects the car market to continue to grow and was working with its manufacturers to raise inventory levels to deal with the increased demand.

The carmaker, which took on extra staff last year, said employee-related costs, including wages and salaries, rose to €12.6 million last year, versus €11.7 million in 2014. Directors’ emoluments fell to €985,000 from €1.06 million.

Elsewhere, new accounts for rival Ford’s Irish subsidiary show it too enjoyed a profitable year in 2015.

Henry Ford and Son Limited, which has a 12.3 per cent market share in Ireland, said pretax profits rose to €5.9 million last year from €300,000 in 2015 on turnover that jumped by 22 per cent, from €254 million to €311 million.

Ireland’s fourth most popular carmaker said Ford registrations were up 34.4 per cent last year, due mainly to increased sales of commercial vehicles.

The company, which employs 33 people in Ireland, said staff costs totalled €3.48 million in 2015, down from €3.76 million in the previous year.