PSA Peugeot Citroen said it would issue new growth targets this year after it completed a restructuring program ahead of schedule amid increasing demand in its home market of Europe.
Recurring operating income last year climbed to 2.73 billion euros (US$3.07 billion) from 797 million euros a year earlier, Europe’s second-largest automaker said in a statement yesterday. Revenue rose 6 percent to 54.7 billion euros.
Peugeot will issue its growth plan on April 5 and said it would start paying a dividend in line with the industry from this year’s earnings.
The result “puts our company back in the race and proves its potential,” chief executive officer Carlos Tavares said in the statement. “We will be able to harness this strength when implementing our new plan for profitable growth.”
Bailed out in 2014 by the French state and China’s Dongfeng Motor Corp (東風汽車), which each bought a 14 percent stake, Peugeot posted its first profit in three years after shutting a plant, cutting jobs and freezing pay. Still, the company has yet to prove it can sustain its turnaround amid a slowdown in China, the world’s largest auto market, and the diesel emissions scandal at Volkwagen AG.
While Peugeot has denied cheating, more than half its European sales rely on the engine type.
The French automaker had targeted a 2 percent operating margin in the automotive division by 2018. It exceeded that goal by far last year, posting operating profit of 5 percent of revenue. The company also exceeded its 2 billion euro target for operating free cash flow in the period through next year, generating 3.8 billion euros last year.
Last year, Peugeot’s international deliveries rose 1.2 percent to 2.97 million cars and light commercial vehicles, boosted by the Middle East, Africa and Asia, as well as its home European market.
The company is betting on further expansion in China. The recent agreement with Peugeot’s Iranian partner, to produce 100,000 vehicles a year in Iran starting late next year is also part of the company’s plan to move from cost-cutting toward growth.
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last