Porsche Automobil Holding SE

It is perhaps the only true constant. It governs all. Stars, planets, life. We know it by the sun rising and setting and all 86,000 seconds of each day. Time. In truth, an unyielding ruler. It is here, and then it is gone. The question time asks us is, what will we do with each moment? And can we make the ones to come better than the ones we have known? At Portia, time is not a restraint. It is a call, a call to transcend it, to birth dreams, to scintillate senses, to forge out of raw materials and human passion, timelessness. All that so you might, In brief flashes or during long winding stretches. Completely. Utterly. Forget time even exists.

Hello and welcome to our Analyst and Investors Update on the first half of 2024. My name is Björn Scheib and with me is our CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board, Oliver Blume, and our CFO and Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board, Lutz Meschke. Today we would like to give you a brief insight of our business performance of the first half of 2024. All materials, such as the investor stack or half-year financial report, are available in the Investors section of the Porsche website. Before we begin, let me remind you that any forward-looking statements we make during this statement are subject to the risks and uncertainties mentioned in the Safe Harbor Statement included in the Porsche materials. This intro will also be governed by this language. With that said, I'd like to hand it over to Olli.

Good morning and a very warm welcome to all of you listening. Great to have you here. Together with my colleague Lutz Meschke, I would like to give an overview of Porsche AG's performance of the first half of this year. We are currently running the largest model offensive in our history, and this in a very challenging environment. Never before we have renewed our product portfolio so comprehensively in such a short time. Panamera, Taycan, Macan. And just a few weeks ago, the world premiere of our icon, the 911. All fully updated. And with the Cayenne in addition, together that's five of six series new in such a short time span. This year, Panamera, Taycan and 911 have already made a well-received start in the market, all on time. The Macan is following in September. With all these model changes, we are launching the strongest product range ever. We cut the average age of our product portfolio in half from three years to currently one and a half. And we will keep them fresh and attractive for years to come with further innovations. This clearly shows we are implementing what we have announced. We deliver. And we see that our course is paying off. After business development was rather subdued in the first quarter as expected, it picked up in the second quarter. All in all, this leads to a robust first half of 2024. However, it is currently becoming apparent that a significantly supply shortage for aluminium parts will affect our planning. We adjusted the forecast accordingly on Monday evening. Lutz will explain the details to you in a moment. As always, there are two things we are absolutely focused on, quality and delighted customers. We have recently been able to improve quality yet again. Claims per car are down on an all-time record level, and that's in spite of great technological complexities. The feedback from our customers shows us that we are on the right track. In the USA, we recently scored first place in the luxury segment in the quality study of J.D. Power. And what's best to reflect Chinese customer satisfaction? Porsche is number one in NCBS dealer satisfaction. And in addition, we ranked also number one in several categories of J.D. Power brand model level in the luxury segment. And of course, we continue to work high speed on improving even more. With innovations in terms of performance and driving experience, we are setting standards and supporting our claim to technological leadership. The new 911 Carrier GTS is the first one with a lightweight performance hybrid. The newly developed, innovative drivetrain ensures significantly improved driving performance. The media and customer response has been extremely positive and the other innovations are also very well received. The Panamera with the Porsche Active Ride Suspension, The enormous performance boost in the new Taycan, together with significant higher range and shorter charging time. With a fully electric Macan, we are raising digitalization to a next level. The augmented head-up display and the navigation charging planner are best-in-class examples. or our new HD Matrix LED headlights that first came with the new Cayenne, just to name a few. Our product strategy is designed to allow for more than 80% of our new cars fully electrified in 2030. depending on the demand of our customers and the development of electromobility in the regions of the world. Positive remark is that we are already flexibly invested in our drivetrain offers for all our segments. ICE, hybrid and BEV for the two-door sports cars, sports limousines and SUVs. Our production sites, Soffenhausen and Leipzig, are set up accordingly flexible. Both plants produce vehicles with all three drivetrains. However, it is clear that many product launches in such a short time frame are an extremely complex task, especially in a volatile environment, both economically and politically. And one thing has become more and more evident. The transformation of the automotive industry towards fully electric vehicles has clearly lost momentum and speed. The ramp-up curve is much flatter than originally assumed. As always, we are monitoring customer interest very closely. and we are adjusting our range and production accordingly where necessary. This is particularly important in view of the fundamental change in the Chinese market. We assume that market conditions there will remain difficult in the medium-term, particularly in the luxury segment. The implementation of a value-oriented and brand-appropriated growth strategy will be one of the principal tasks of the new CEO of Porsche China, Alexander Pollich. Beyond this, his focus will be on an even more intensive collaboration with the local dealer partners as well as the further optimization of the internal processes and structures. We are strengthening our brand without joining the current pricing and incentive dynamic of the market, excepting lower volumes. The current residual values of our products are a positive indication. At the same time, it pays off that we have worked intensively on balancing our sales in different parts of the world. The China share of our worldwide deliveries was recently 19% in the first half of this year. And we were able to compensate for this well with a strong development in other regions. This proves our increased independence from the Chinese market and the robustness of our business model. We continue to consistently adhere to our value-over-volume approach. In line with this principle, we will continue to produce high-quality vehicles with attractive features and a profitable cost structure in China and in all other regions worldwide. The demand for our individualized vehicles is greater than ever. Since the IPO, we have been able to increase sales per vehicle resulting from individualization by over 13%, despite the increasing product substance with each new model generation. We will continue to make very targeted investment in innovation, digitalization and sustainability to inspire our customers with our new vehicles to further charge the Porsche brand. Our ambition is always to become even better, even in view of the challenging macroeconomic environment and the changing framework conditions. This is why we are also reviewing and prioritizing our cost structure and scope of development. We keep on focusing on our long-term ambition of more than 20% group return on sales. To regularly reflect on and optimize our actions is a very important part of the Porsche DNA. It is the reason why Porsche is so robustly positioned today and has successfully mastered various challenges in the recent years. The coronavirus pandemic, for example, the semiconductor shortages or the consequences of the war in Ukraine. We will retain this robustness for the future with the aim of further increasing our own resilience and being able to counter future uncertainties in the markets even better. Our focus is on the stringent implementation of our Porsche strategy, which we are also sharpening and readjusting in some areas. In doing so, we are also taking account of the challenging framework conditions and market as well as our customers and their needs. With Strategy 2030+, the company is further being systematically developed and new accents can be set. We have defined our stance as a modern luxury brand for all elements of the strategy. Quality standards are also to be strengthened. Together with our Road to 20, it forms the foundation. We are also responding to the increased relevance of the topics of car IT, artificial intelligence and culture. In our software strategy, our customers benefit from the new partnerships with the aim of creating leading technology architectures. This will enable us to bring the best solutions to our vehicles faster and at lower cost. We are also acting in the best interest of our strong brand, which will inspire with its iconic products. The partnerships fit seamlessly into our existing software strategy, products and corporations. This will strengthen our technology profile and our competitiveness. So let me briefly summarize. Our business development is proceeding according to plan, despite all challenging environment. We launched our new products on time with positive feedback from the media and good response in the market. We have a high ramp-up quality and positive external quality assessments of Porsche products. In terms of sales, the dip in China can almost be compensated. And the financial result in Q2 is in the accepted range. With the largest product offensive in Porsche's history, we are putting ourselves in pole position in the endurance race of transformation. Numerous technological highlights underline our innovative strengths. We want to inspire our customers worldwide. This makes us confident regarding the return to our mid-term profitability range of 17 to 19 percent in 2025. And now I hand over to Lutz Meschke to tell you the figures in detail. Lutz, it's up to you.