The shareholders at the 52nd Annual General Meeting of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft voted by a majority of 99.96% to pay a dividend of €3.00 (previous year: €2.20) per ordinary share and €3.06 (€2.26) per preferred share as recommended by the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board. About €1.4 billion will come from the net profit of Volkswagen AG.
In 2011, the Volkswagen Group reported record vehicle sales, revenue and earnings. The VW Group sold more than 8 million vehicles for the first time with global share of the passenger car market rising from 11.3% to 12.3%.
The Group’s global market share has risen by 2.7 percentage points since 2007 and its return on sales before tax has climbed from 6% in 2007 to 11.9% last year. As a result, sales revenue increased by 25.6% in the past fiscal year to €159.3 billion (previous year: €126.9 billion).
VW Group consolidated operating profit rose to a record €11.3 billion, an improvement of €4.1 billion compared with 2010. This does not include the Group’s €2.6 billion (€1.9 billion in 2010) share of the operating profit of its communist-government-required Chinese joint ventures. Operating margin improved from 5.6% to 7.1%.
The Annual General Meeting elected Ursula M. Piëch as a new member of the Supervisory Board. She succeeds Dr. Michael Frenzel whose term of office expired at the end of the Annual General Meeting. At the Supervisory Board meeting held following the General Meeting, the members of the Supervisory Board elected Prof. Dr. Ferdinand K. Piëch for a further term as the Supervisory Board Chairman.
