Volkswagen posts a €5.86 billion operating loss in the third quarter as nine-month profit almost vanishes
Volkswagen Group reported on Thursday 29 October 2026 a third-quarter operating loss of €5.86 billion, per the company's own nine-month results release, read in full — sales revenue fell 6.3% to €75.28 billion and earnings after tax were a loss of €5.82 billion. Over the first nine months the operating result fell 98.7% to just €71 million on revenue of €233.38 billion, and the Group expects 2026 revenue of around €315 billion with an operating return on sales of up to 1%. Reuters reports the quarterly loss was far wider than the €2.6 billion analysts had forecast, hit by about €8 billion in one-off items largely linked to a writedown of Volkswagen's stake in Porsche.
Key points
- Volkswagen Group's third-quarter 2026 operating result was −€5,860 million on sales revenue of €75,277 million (−6.3%), with earnings after tax of −€5,822 million — per the company's own nine-month results release, read in full, cross-checked against Reuters and DW.
- Over the first nine months the operating result fell 98.7% to €71 million on revenue of €233,378 million (−2.2%); vehicle sales fell 10.6% to 5,880 thousand units; Automotive net liquidity stood at €32,982 million at 30 September.
- The Group's 2026 outlook, in the same release: revenue of around €315 billion and an operating return on sales of up to 1%, assuming the current tariff situation remains unchanged and excluding any Middle East escalation impact.
- Reuters reports the loss beat the €2.6 billion Visible Alpha forecast by a wide margin, was hit by about €8 billion in one-off items largely linked to a Porsche stake writedown, and was the largest quarterly deficit since Q4 2015.
What happened
These are Volkswagen Group's results for the first nine months of 2026, released in Wolfsburg on Thursday 29 October 2026. By brand group over the nine months, per the release's own table: the Core brand group made an operating result of €4,326 million on revenue of €106,417 million; the Sport Luxury group (Porsche) made €1,493 million on €22,143 million; the Trucks group (TRATON) made €1,655 million; CARIAD lost €1,316 million and the Battery division lost €1,049 million, while 'Other' items — mainly intragroup eliminations — were −€8,881 million.
The release frames the year as one of restructuring: the Core group's result was weighed down by restructuring costs, the completed discontinuation of ID.4 production in the US and the planned sale of Volkswagen Osnabrück, while Porsche's nine-month revenue fell to €22.1 billion from €23.8 billion a year earlier. Reuters places the results against brutal competition in China, billions in annual tariff costs and a costly electric-vehicle ramp-up in Europe — the pressures behind the restructuring plan it reports.
Claim by claim
Why this label: From Volkswagen Group's own press release, 'Volkswagen Group: Nine-month results underline urgent need for action' (Wolfsburg, 29 October 2026, published 07:32 CET), read in full for this brief — the company's own key-figures table for Q3 2026 against Q3 2025. Reuters and DW report the same operating loss (€5.9 billion / €5.86 billion) and the same revenue (€75.3 billion, down about 6%).
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: All nine-month figures, the net-liquidity figure and the employee count are from the same Volkswagen Group release, read in full — its key-figures table (9M 2026 against 9M 2025) and its Automotive Division table (net liquidity at Sep. 30).
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: The outlook and its stated assumptions are from the same Volkswagen Group release, read in full — the company's own forecast wording, including its list of uncertainties (macroeconomic environment, trade restrictions and geopolitical tensions, competitive intensity, volatile commodity, energy and foreign-exchange markets, and emissions-regulation requirements).
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Show all claims (1 more)
Why this label: The forecast comparison, the ~€8 billion one-off items and Porsche-writedown attribution, the 'largest since Q4 2015' point, the Antlitz quotes and the job-cuts/plant-closure plan are Reuters' reporting of 29 October 2026, read in search in this run (and carried in syndicated copies of the same Reuters dispatch), and are reported here as Reuters states them. DW's headline likewise attributes the loss to the Porsche writedown. Volkswagen's own release, above, does not itself break out the ~€8 billion figure in the text read for this brief.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
What we know / what we don't know yet
What we know
- The third-quarter and nine-month headline figures, the brand-group table, and the 2026 outlook with its stated assumptions — from Volkswagen Group's own nine-month results press release of 29 October 2026, read in full in this run, cross-checked against Reuters (same €5.9 billion loss and €75.3 billion revenue) and DW (same €5.86 billion loss).
What we don't know yet
- The full breakdown of the ~€8 billion in one-off items — that figure and its Porsche-writedown attribution are Reuters' reporting; the release text read in full for this brief does not itself itemise them, and Volkswagen's fuller interim report was not read here.
- Whether unions will strike over the reported restructuring plan — Reuters reports fierce opposition and possible strikes from early next year; no union decision is carried in this brief.
- Whether an official video of the results was available at publication — finance chief Antlitz gave a video statement (quoted by Reuters), but no official Volkswagen Group YouTube video of the results was verified via YouTube's oEmbed endpoint in this run, so the brief is published without an embedded video rather than using a third-party upload.
Why it matters
Volkswagen is Europe's largest carmaker and the world's second-largest, employing some 648,000 people. A quarter in which it lost €5.86 billion at the operating level — and a nine-month operating profit of just €71 million on €233 billion of revenue — is a direct measure of how hard the shift to electric vehicles, Chinese competition and tariffs are hitting the industry's centre of gravity, and its own outlook caps the year's operating return at 1%.
Update history
No silent edits. Every change is written here, with its time.
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Story published as a confirmed brief, based on Volkswagen Group's own nine-month results press release of 29 October 2026, read in full in this run, cross-checked against Reuters' and DW's same-day reports. The item was queued as publish-ready at queue #304 (primary read in the 10:39 UTC scan) and held through two runs that completed other publishes; the primary release was re-read in full in this run before publishing.