German car giant Volkswagen's core brand posted vastly improved figures for 2021 despite ongoing problems due to the shortage of semiconducter chips.
Although car sales slipped, the Wolfsburg-based company was able to more than quintuple its annual profit to about €2.5 billion ($2.75 billion).
Total turnover at the main VW passenger car division increased from about €71.1 billion to €76.1 billion, according to the group's annual report, published on Tuesday.
Sales, on the other hand, fell from 2,835,000 cars to 2,719,000.
VW's light commercial vehicles rebounded from a loss of €454 million in 2020 to an operating profit of €73 million the next year.
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic has not gone away yet, Europe's largest car group says.
However, limited vehicle availability as a result of the semiconductor shortage has affected VW as it has other carmakers. Shifts in plants were cancelled, and some employees in Germany were put on short-time work, a government-backed furlough scheme.
VW expects the electronics shortage to last at least until the second half of the year. Many customers are having to wait a long time for their cars; for several models there is a temporary block on orders.
The VW Group as a whole released its 2021 figures last Friday. It managed to increase its net profit by 75% to €15.4 billion. Turnover grew - partly due to the inclusion of the new truck subsidiary Navistar in the United States - by 12.3% to €250.2 billion.
Worldwide deliveries, on the other hand, fell by 4.5% to just under 8.9 million cars.
Along with the pandemic and the chip shortage, the industry is facing great uncertainties in the current year above all because of the war in Ukraine. VW Group boss Herbert Diess has said he fears that the global economic consequences of a prolonged military conflict could be even more severe than the affect of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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