Porsche turnaround gathers pace as profits recover from dire 2025

Porsche’s financial recovery gathered speed in the first half of 2026, with profits continuing to climb back to historical levels, but the company’s CEO Michael Leiters says there is still “a lot of work ahead” to turn the company around. Following a tumultuous 2025 in which the German sports car firm’s return on sales collapsed to a record low of just 1.1% as it scrambled to rewrite its product strategy in light of low demand for the EVs it had invested billions in developing, Porsche is now back on the up, achieving a 7.8% return on sales in the first six months of 2026. The firm attributes the upswing to the “stringent value-over-volume” strategy which forms the basis of ‘Sportswagenshmiede 35’ (loosely ‘sports car maker’) - the corporate strategy which underpins its turnaround plan, and which will be detailed in full at the company’s capital markets day on 7 October. The fundamental aim of the strategy is to achieve a higher return on each car sold, which Porsche is already achieving: while it delivered 16.5% fewer cars year-on-year in the first half of 2026, at 122,306 units, operating profit was up nearly 34% to €1.35bn (£1.16bn). Porsche attributes the improved margins partly to a “highly attractive” product mix, with top-rung GTS, Turbo and GT derivatives accounting for a strong proportion of model sales. It also hailed the ongoing success of its flagship sports car, the 911, which grew in popularity by 19% while all other model lines lost ground - including the hugely successful SUVs. With 30,534 units sold in the first six months, the 911 was only slightly behind the Macan – which is no longer offered with a petrol powertrain – at 35,315, down 22%. Overall volumes were less dramatically impacted by the demise of the 718 Cayman and Boxster sports cars, which notched up more than 10,000 sales in H1 2025 but dropped to less than 3000 this year, following the end of production in October last year. Crucial to achieving Porsche’s targeted margin growth is a rigid focus on reducing costs, which is why the company is working to dramatically downsize its global workforce over the coming years; the firm aims to axe around 9000 positions – or one in five of its staff – by 2035. On Monday, the firm reached an agreement with labour representatives to cut 5000 roles in Germany – via natural attrition and voluntary schemes – having announced an initial package of around 4400 cuts previously. Speaking to journalists on the firm’s financial results call, Leiters said these job cuts were a vital strand of his plan to make the company future-proof, as it had “grown above proportion in [several] areas”, particularly in instances where new “management positions were created”. He said the company needed to “really rectify” this, but did not go into specifics about which departments will be most heavily impacted, nor did he outline the precise impact on “commercial employees and line workers”; any changes here will “very much be driven by demand for the brand and the product programme”. Leiters also said that while the company aims to pivot back to a “value over volume” strategy and maximise profit on each car, it will not simply boost output of the most expensive variants in its portfolio - for example the GT3 and Turbo versions of the 911. “I think a very healthy measure in the profit mix of the 911 is what we’ve achieved, and we can see a very solid and robust demand for the 911 in principle. We always follow a strategy of value over volume; we want to retain that scarcity and desirability for the product. “But I can also tell you that in this customer segment we have a very good understanding of the customer wishes, and we still have a good idea of how we can make the 911 still further and better, without diluting or cannibalising wholesales of the 911.

main menu

Porsche turnaround gathers pace as profits recover from dire 2025

Deliveries down but margins up, as firm pivots to 'value over volume'; 911 surges while all other models decline

More from Autocar

Top 10s

Latest car reviews

Top manufacturers

Quick search

Legal bits

About Autocar

main menu

Porsche turnaround gathers pace as profits recover from dire 2025

Deliveries down but margins up, as firm pivots to 'value over volume'; 911 surges while all other models decline

More from Autocar

Top 10s

Latest car reviews

Top manufacturers

Quick search

We recommend

Legal bits

About Autocar