Part of the Volkswagen, Audi on Thursday gave an early estimate of the costs associated with diesel scandal, saying that they had a negative impact on Audi profit for 2015.
Audi said its operating profit fell 6.1 % to 4.84 billion euro ($ 5.3 billion) influenced by the scandal related expenses of 228 million euro, as well as reserves of recall of autos with defective airbags produced by Takata Corp. This year the company may incur further costs at EUR 40-60 million.
As Audi shares an important part of VW profits, the results make it possible to evaluate the activity of the entire company, which last month delayed the publication of the annual report before the end of April, as the financial implications of the diesel scandal remain unclear.
Audi said it expects "gradual" supply growth and earnings to new record levels this year, with 1.8 million vehicles and 58.4 billion euro respectively.
In November, Audi admitted that it used approximately 85 000 vehicles with diesel engine software showing incorrect information about harmful emissions, and in February sent the US regulator special proposals on the correction of these defects.
The operating profit margin of Volkswagen division producing luxury cars fell to 8.3 % from 9.6 %, compared with 10 % at the Mercedes-Benz rival, who beat Audi in terms of sales last year for the first time since 2010. BMW will publish its financial results for 2015 only 16 of March.
The Audi account for the largest share of Volkswagen Group, which also includes the Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Skoda, motorcycles Ducati, MAN trucks, Scania's and Volkswagen Commercial.
Volkswagen has postponed the publication of statements of the group as a whole for 2015 until the end of April in order to better assess the impact of the scandal of the diesel and the cost of restoring vehicles to normal.