STOCKHOLM, July 17 (Reuters) – Sweden’s Volvo Cars on Friday reported a decline in profits for the second quarter compared with the first three months while the automaker hopes to speed up its recovery with deliveries of the new EX60 electric model in the time ahead.
The company, majority-owned by China’s Geely Holding, posted an operating profit of 800 million Swedish crowns ($82,76 million) for the April to June period, lagging the 1.6 billion reported in the first quarter this year.
Volvo Cars said it still expects its earnings margins to receive a boost in the second half of this year as the output of the new flagship EX60 SUV fully ramps up.
“Volvo Cars expects significantly stronger sales during the second half of the year compared to the first half, on the back of growth in Europe, a continued recovery in the U.S. and a challenging China market,” Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson said in a statement.
The company last year launched an 18 billion-crown cost-cutting plan, and said on Friday it said it had delivered 5 billion of indirect savings six months ahead of schedule.
Gross margin, a metric investors and analysts are looking at closely to assess the impact from trade tariffs, came in at 16.8%, compared to 18.5% in the first quarter.
($1 = 9.6661 Swedish crowns)
(Reporting by Marie Mannes, editing by Terje Solsvik)
