No matter which way you cut it, an automobile is a big-ticket item. But that doesn’t mean that theirs manufacturer are making big profit margins. Except for Porsche. That company’s making money hand over fist.
Just how much money? Bloomberg did the math: the 238,000 vehicles it sold last year and its $4.1-billion operating profit works out to an average of over $17,000 on every car it sells.
In other words, it could nearly buy a new VW Jetta for every vehicle it sells. If the company so chose, it could fill its lot with 238,000 Jettas based solely on its operating profit.
Of course, that’s an average. So it likely makes more on, say, a Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid or a 911 Turbo Cabriolet (pictured above) – both of which more than double their base model’s MSRP at nearly $200k – than it does on a Macan, which starts at under $50k.
But even that price of admission is higher than those of most of its rivals. About $33k will get you in the door for a Mercedes GLA or CLA, or a base BMW 2 Series or 3 Series. Add to that the extensive options list of which many Porsche customers avail themselves and the prices start climbing even higher.
No wonder, with those profit margins, that Porsche had almost enough cash on hand to buy the entire Volkswagen Group, which by now has grown to become the largest automaker in the world.
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