Porsche Raises Full-Year Pretax Profit Forecast

Porsche said it expects its full year to July 31, 2007 pretax profit to be "significantly" better than the 2.1 billion euros ($2.8 billion) posted in the previous business year.

It said for the ten month period covering August 1, 2006 to May 31, 2007, revenues totalled 5.98 billion euros, slightly up from 5.96 billion euros for the same period last year.

Unit sales for the ten months to May 31 were around 79,540 from 79,564 in the same period a year earlier. It said first-half pretax profit was 1.59 billion euros compared with the 1.45 billion euros preliminary figure released early this year.

"Considering the ten months of the year so far, it is not difficult to predict that our annual earnings to July 31, 2007, that is at the end of this business year, will be ...significantly better than the 2.1 billion euros in the previous year," CEO Wendelin Wiedeking said.

He said the profits were due to one-time factors, such as the proceeds from the share price hedging relating to the acquisition of Volkswagen shares and the re-valuation of Porsche's stake in Volkswagen.

Porsche said sales of the Cayenne SUV in the first ten months totalled 25,436 units, or 10.7% below the previous year's figure.

Porsche said it aims to achieve a new sales record in the 2006/2007 business year for its traditional model series 911, after posting a 12.2% increase in the first ten months, or 31,287 units.

Sales of the Boxster series totalled 22,806 units as of end-May, slightly lower than the previous year's figure.