Volkswagen will incur a slight loss in the United States this year after the group's overall profits more than halved last year, the finance chief of Europe's biggest car maker said last night.
"In the auto business [in the United States] alone, that is excluding financial services, we will be slightly negative in 2003," Mr Hans-Dieter Poetsch told reporters at the Detroit Motor Show, adding he forecast a similar result for this year.
VW has long said it expects its 2003 group operating profit to more than halve from €4.76 billion in 2002 due to weak auto demand, a strong euro and the cost of cutting jobs in Brazil.
It has said profits will improve this year, helped by an updated version of its top-selling Golf hatchback and other new models, and Mr Poetsch repeated that he expected the group as a whole to see earnings rise significantly in 2004.
But the company has also said investors will have to wait until 2005 for profits to return to full strength, with its US business weak as two key models in the market - the Jetta and Passat sedans - fall due for replacement.
Chief Executive Mr Bernd Pischetsrieder said he expected the German car market, Europe's biggest market, which has been in decline for almost four years, to pick up in 2004.