Porsche’s sales figures have been known for a long time already -- its Volkswagen shares have brought the company a profit of almost six billion euros. Porsche’s CEO Wendelin Wiedeking recently praised the members of his financial team.

To Wendelin Wiedeking, the fact that Porsche has upheld its position of the world’s most profitable car manufacturer means even more than the extraordinary book profits from the Volkswagen shares. He stressed that Porsche did not participate in the recent discount battles and said that even independent Porsche dealers got no discounts even though the luxury car market was becoming increasingly competitive. He added that the company’s consistent internationalisation is another reason for its success:

”Porsche is now represented in 103 markets. Through its affiliated companies and regional offices, it influences about 90 percent of all sales.”

Potential in Asian markets

According to Wiedeking, the strategy has already paid off in Germany and the US where Porsche sells about half of all its cars. “Young markets such as Russia and China, the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, but also Africa, eastern and south-eastern Europe and Latin America are growing so rapidly that they now make up about 20 percent of the market.”

Porsche’s global sales figures can be viewed as indirect business indicators for the individual regions. For example, sales in the US went down by 10 percent, reflecting the general slump in the country. Wiedeking is glad that the company was able to expand its other markets in time:

“The strongest growth drivers were the new markets. In China alone, we doubled our sales to 3,378 cars and in Russia to 1,976. But the growth rate is limited by the lack of educated colleagues, who understand Porsche, and by the lack of new service capacities and new traders which have to be developed. But despite all that, the market is very well-disposed towards us.”

Targeting middle class

That is hardly surprising. In both China and Russia, there is a growing middle and upper class, which can afford expensive cars. But the roads are not suited so much to low-slung sports cars. So there, all-terrain SUVs such as the Cayenne are all the rage.

Porsche hopes that China will become the company's second biggest market by 2012. After the US, Germany holds this position -- Porsche wants its sales in China to be multiplied by five.