According to analysts, car manufacturer Porsche is not ruling out a decline in sales in 2025 due to continued weakness in China.

Frank Biller, automotive analyst at Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that Porsche had predicted that it would at best be able to maintain the sales level of 2024 this year or that there would even be a decline. "The hope was that things would go up in 2025 with the new model portfolio." Porsche is expecting a challenging market and a decline in sales, according to an analysis by Bernstein Research.

The DAX-listed company held an internal conference with analysts on Tuesday evening. With such pre-close calls, listed companies bring the financial market up to date before publishing their balance sheet, but present neither results nor an outlook. In response to analysts' reports, Porsche shares fell by more than two percent on Wednesday, making them the biggest loser on the DAX.

Porsche had stated that it preferred to protect its profit margin in the highly competitive Chinese market rather than increase sales figures, Biller added. Last year, the sports car manufacturer's sales in China slumped by 28 percent because affluent customers were reluctant to make luxury purchases and competition from Chinese carmakers was growing. Deliveries by the Volkswagen subsidiary worldwide shrank by three percent to just under 311,000 vehicles in 2024.

"Porsche is working to reduce its footprint in China," wrote Bernstein analyst Stephen Reitman after the call with almost 200 participants. According to him, there was no all-clear on the cost side, with expenditure on research and development remaining high. "Lower sales and the cost trend suggest unfavorable coverage of fixed costs," explained Reitman.

(Report by Ilona Wissenbach, edited by Myria Mildenberger. If you have any queries, please contact the editorial team at frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com)