Volvo financial results: carmaker posts speedy sales for 2023

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Written on Jan 26, 2024

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Swedish car manufacturer Volvo announced its 2023 financial results this morning.
Net sales were up for Volvo, who generally reported upbeat results, though with a few slowdowns.
While demand for EVs was up significantly in 2023, truck sales were down, raising questions for the future.

Volvo Cars on January 26^th reported the full year 2024 and Q4 financial results in Stockholm before markets opened. The company announced strong net sales, in keeping with the first three quarters of the financial year, as well as other thought-provoking figures.

Sales up by over 15 percent

In both a webcast and a press release, Volvo said that:

For the full year 2023, we increased net sales by almost SEK 80 billion to SEK 553 billion and the adjusted operating income to SEK 77.6 billion (50.5), with an adjusted operating margin of 14.0 percent.”

In addition, Q4 net sales were up ten percent at SEK 148.1 billion and earnings per share amounted to SEK 5.93 (roughly $3.26).

Racing ahead of expectations

Ahead of the earnings report, analysts expected the European car giant to announce a net profit of around SEK 12.65 billion for Q4, up from SEK 6.69 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. Overall, sales were to rise to approximately SEK 136.3 billion for 2023, up marginally YoY from 2022’s full-year amount of SEK 134.3 billion.

The company’s adjusted operating income stood at 18,384 for Q4, compared with Q3;s 12,171. This meant that Volvo cars increased its operating income in 2023 by almost 50 percent, from 50,467 in 2022 to 77,638 last year.

However, many were expecting depressed truck sales for the company, as demand for these noticeably slowed in 2023. And indeed, the company’s net order intake for Q4 stood at SEK 49,347 in the earnings, down from 54,108 in Q3. This brings 2023’s truck sales down significantly from 2022’s SEK 217,779 to SEK 204,897.

A good start

Volvo has had a good start to 2024 so far. On January 5^th, the carmaker announced that December 2023’s numbers had shown an all-time high sales record for Volvo cars, off the back of ever-increasing demand for electric vehicles.

The climate-conscious push for more and more EVs, especially in Europe, has served the Swedish car brand well. In the same press release, Volvo said that:

Last year, Volvo Cars sold 113,419 fully electric cars, an increase of 70 per cent compared to 2022, and 152,561 plug-in hybrid cars, which was a 10 per cent increase compared to 2022. Sales of fully electric cars accounted for 16 per cent of all Volvo cars sold globally during 2023.”

Volvo’s share price has risen by more than 30 percent in the past year, driven by strong truck and EV sales, predominantly in Europe but also increasingly in the U.S.

Before markets opened on Friday, the Volvo share price was trading at SEK250,95 off the back of optimism in the markets for the earnings figures. This was up significantly from its previous close price of SEK250.10.

Volvo’s full annual report, with further details on the 2023 year, will be published on the company’s website on February 29^th.