"Our integration has come a long way in the last few months and I am sure that we will be able to drive our partnership forward in 2009, a difficult year for the auto sector," Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn was quoted as saying by Autonews. Furthermore, Winterkorn has an enthusiastic view over the evolution of the Porsche-VW collaboration, saying that the two partners have the ability to become "the center of power for the international automobile industry".
Particularly, Volkswagen had an interesting evolution in the auto sector since the beginning of the recession, as it rarely turned to cost-cutting measures and, even if it did so, the moves never affected the way the company treats the new car market. For instance, Volkswagen announced in January that it intends to cut 400 jobs in South Africa, obviously with the economic instability as the main reason.
However, a thing worth mentioning is that Volkswagen initially forecasted a slight decline in the 2009 production, despite the 0.6 percent increase in last year's sales. Winterkorn said in January at the Detroit Auto Show that Volkswagen expects a decline of up to 10 percent in 2009, mainly as a reaction to 20 percent drop of the global auto sector.
Speaking of the Porsche-Volkswagen collaboration, Porsche increased its stake in VW to more than 50 percent in January, with reports claiming that a 75 percent stake is now the new target of the parent company.
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