Spain’s SEAT Turns First Profit in 6 Years in 2015

MADRID – Spanish automaker SEAT posts its first profit in six years in 2015, reporting net after-tax income of €6 million ($6.7 million) compared a €66 million ($74 million) loss the previous year.

The profit came on sales of €8.3 billion ($9.3 billion), up 11.1% from 2014. The result takes into account parent Volkswagen’s assumption of the cost of retooling the 700,000 cars assembled by SEAT using emissions-test-cheating software.

“This year we have very good news, coming back to black numbers with the biggest turnover in the story of the company, twice the one reached in 2009, the first year (SEAT) closed with financial losses,” says CEO Luca de Meo, who has headed SEAT since November.

SEAT deliveries increased 2.4% year-over-year in 2015 to 400,037, including factory sales of the Audi Q3 to parent Volkswagen. The compact CUV is built at SEAT’s Martorell plant.

Exports increased for a fifth consecutive year in Germany, the automaker’s most important market outside Spain, rising 3.5% to 87,800 units. The increase stems in part from SEAT’s role in assembling the Audi Q3 compact CUV at its Martorell plant.

Spain was the automaker’s second-biggest market with 77,529 vehicles sold, up 5.7%, according to WardsAuto data. It was followed by the U.K. (47,209) and Mexico (24,100).

The most-popular model in 2015 was the Leon with 160,887 deliveries for 40.2% of total SEAT sales, followed by the Ibiza with 153,500 units. The Alhambra achieved both the highest growth (17.2%) among all models and the second-best sales result in its history (27,000 units) before being discontinued last summer.

Chief Financial Officer Holger Kintscher notes 2015 revenues increased in part because of an average increase of €460 ($515) per unit, raising the automaker’s operating margin from 4% to 4.7%.

SEAT assembled 477,077 vehicles at its Martorell plant, up 7.6% from the prior year and the most since 2001. Output comprised 342,907 Leon and Ibiza models and 134,170 Q3s.

Production of the Q3 at Martorell ends in 2018, but the facility near Barcelona has been awarded assembly of the second-generation Ibiza; the Audi Q1, another small CUV; and a SEAT-badged CUV smaller than the Ateca compact SUV being built by VW-owned Czech Republic automaker Skoda.