Volkswagen Ag Unsp/Adr

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the annual Media Analyst and Investor Conference of Volkswagen AG. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question later on, this is possible via the telephone conference. Please press 9 followed by the star key on your telephone keypad to signal that you wish to like to ask a question. If you wish to cancel your question, please press 9 followed by the star key a second time. For now, let me turn the floor over to Rolf Woller.

Many thanks, Ulrike. Good morning or good afternoon or good evening from wherever you have dialed in, and a warm welcome to the Volkswagen Group's Analyst and Investor Conference 2024. With me today here are Oliver Blume, our CEO, and Arno Antlitz, our CFO, COO. The presentation we will give is structured in three parts. We will start first with Olli, who will provide a brief overview and status update on 2023, followed by Arno, who will guide you through the financials of 2023 and the outlook for 2024. And the final section is then again Olli with what's next and closing remarks. Before we start, let me provide you with a few remarks. You should have received the press release the annual report, and other related materials, all of which were published this morning. If you haven't received them, you can find them on our website. In case of any issue, please give us a call or drop us an email, and we will send them straight away to you. Coming to page two, our disclaimer. As a reminder, and as always, the safe harbor language and other cautionary statements of our presentation will govern today's presentation. I would like to encourage you to read the disclaimer carefully since all forward-looking statements are qualified by this language. In order to maximize our time we have today for the presentation and the Q&A, I will not read it out loud to you. And with that, I hand over to Olli.

Thank you very much, Rolf. We delivered robust results, desirable products, and an effective strategy with a strong focus on execution. The Volkswagen Group is shaping the long-distance race called Transformation from a Position of Strange. This was an extraordinary achievement. This achievement was only possible thanks to an exceptional team. The year 2023 was a real sprint for the Volkswagen Group's more than 680,000 employees worldwide. They are the DNA of our company and shape it with great passion. This is why I would like to start this conference call today saying thank you to every single member of the Volkswagen Group team member together with the entire executive board. It has been a convincing performance with great team spirit and overall a strong year. We look back on an inspiring year 2023. We have great friends all over the world with new products and exciting anniversaries. We established our 2023 Top 10 program. This program defined our central fields of action, strategically and operationally, with clear responsibilities and ambition levels, with regular reporting on the progress. All of that in a very transparent way. Most importantly, the Volkswagen Group implemented and delivered along the defined measures. We reached out major milestones and took key decisions to our future. We are executing. We are making progress noticeably and measurably, day by day and hour by hour. The true strength of the group and key differentiator is to be found in the strength of its brands. Our brands fascinate customers all over the world with an unrivaled product portfolio and This broad portfolio is unique, not only because it offers attractive vehicles in all segments, of which many have been renewed in 2023. For example, the new Volkswagen Tiguan, the ID.Bus, the Passat, the Skoda Superb, the Bentley Bentayga, the Porsche 911 Dakar, the Volkswagen ID.7, and the Lamborghini Rivalto. These are just a few examples of our fascinating product, novelties in the last year. Our product makes a difference. At 9.2 million vehicles delivered to customers in 2023, we were 12% up compared to the previous year. We recorded strong double-digit growth in Europe and North America in particular. Our deliveries are also increased in China last year, despite a very demanding environment. Our electric vehicles outperformed the strong overall growth in deliveries. With a highly attractive range, we convinced our customers. Compared to the prior year, our BEV deliveries increased by 35% to a total of 771,000 vehicles. In the final quarter of 2023, the share of our BEVs reached 10%. This strong basis and the upcoming launches of some highly attractive new BEV models make us confident that we will be able to grow our BEV share also in 2024. Financially, we achieved robust results in challenging 2023. Our strong unit sales performance resulted in a sizable growth in revenues, which increased by 15% to €322 billion. Volume was a main growth driver, but price and product mix contributed as well. The operating result also improved to 22.6 billion euros, despite substantial headwinds from valuation effects from raw material derivatives. Excluding those, the operating profit grew to almost 26 billion euros and resulted in an underlying return on sales of 8%. During quarter four, we put extra efforts on bringing down our working capital. That clearly played off and led to a strong full-year net cash flow to 10.7 billion euros. As a result, our net liquidity came at a very strong solid base of 40.3 billion euros. The strong operating performance translated into an increase in net income of 13% to 17.9 billion euros. Earnings per share grew to almost 32 euros. And we continue to let our shareholders participate in the financial success of Volkswagen Group, offering an attractive investment proposition. The Group Executive Board and Supervisory Board will therefore propose a dividend of €9 per ordinary share and €9.06 per preference share to the Annual Shareholder Meeting in May. Before we continue, let me briefly revisit our promises we made at the Capital Markets Day in June 2023. We have defined action fields that are aligned with our ambitions and the expectations of the capital market. And we made significant progress across all action fields. For example, our top 10 programs are having an impact. The 2023 results are first testimony to that. We have further strengthened the management team. We developed a group-wide sustainability strategy. With the Audi Q6 e-tron and the new Porsche Macan electric, we have the first models on the PPE platform ready for market launch. Our battery strategy is right on schedule. With our mix of combustion engines, plug-in hybrids, and pure electric engines, we can adapt flexibly to customer demand and differentiate from other OEMs. We have a clear plan for Audi and Volkswagen brands. Now we are starting to execute it. In China, we are stepping up the pace with local partners and catching up with competition with our in China, for China strategy. In North America, we are focusing on greater localization and development and production as a basis for a stronger presence. In Europe, our home market, we are operating from a position of strength. Here in particular, we are concentrating our sustainable value creation. Accordingly, We are adapting production capacity to our core workforce. We have decided on ambitious performance programs together with all brands and are now focusing on consequent implementation. In investment planning, our investment planning is oriented towards the most attractive profit pools. Management remuneration is mostly closely aligned with our strategic goals, such as the net cash flow targets. The SOLID financial result demonstrates the group's potential and gives us confidence to master a challenging year 2024. Our transformation is based on a robust financial foundation, which at the same time allows to let shareholders and employees participate in the success of the group. Ladies and gentlemen, we started to deliver across all dimensions. Let's summarize. 2023 was a year of restructuring. The cleanup work has been completed. We consistently adhered to our ambitious roadmap by focusing on action fields along the top 10 program. We reached key milestones and made strategic decisions for a successful future. At the end, an enormously productive year. In 2024, we aim to stabilize these achievements, further executing on our core decisions in all relevant areas. This will form the basis for an ambitious and accelerated ramp-up from 2025 on. I already provided a glimpse of our 2023 financial results. Nevertheless, it's worth taking a closer look. That's why I now hand over to my colleague, Arno, our CFO and COO. Arno, please. It's your turn.