Volkswagen CFO says China car market has already shrunk 20%, with no stabilization in sight
Volkswagen shares fell more than 7% after the company cut its 2026 profit outlook on September 18
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Volkswagen's chief financial officer, Arno Antlitz, said on September 18 that China's passenger car market had already contracted by around 20 per cent, with no stabilization in sight, according to Bloomberg reporting carried by Yahoo Finance.
The remark came as Volkswagen cut its 2026 operating margin outlook to no more than 1 per cent, down from a prior forecast of at least 4 per cent. The company cited about €10 billion in charges, including a Porsche writedown and China-related costs, according to the same reporting.
Volkswagen shares fell more than 7 per cent after the September 18 announcement, dragging other automakers lower, the reporting showed. The company's China deliveries fell 20 per cent in the first half of 2026, Volkswagen has said, following a 10 per cent drop in Chinese sales in 2024 to 2.93 million vehicles that the company blamed on a price war, according to Reuters reporting carried by MarketScreener. Volkswagen is due to report results for the first nine months of 2026 on October 29, according to Car Dealer Magazine.
Antlitz's assessment of a China market that has already shrunk by a fifth, with no stabilization in sight, sits awkwardly against the current tone of US-China trade talks, where officials have discussed extending tariff truces and rare-earth supplies have begun to normalize. It points to structural weakness in Volkswagen's largest market that tariffs and geopolitical tension could deepen further, and suggests the pressure already showing up in Volkswagen's 2026 numbers is unlikely to ease soon.