Porsche, the symbol of supercars, is struggling. On the 25th, the company disclosed that cumulative operating profit for the nine months through the third quarter fell to 4.0 billion euros (about 6 trillion won) from 4.035 billion euros (about 6 trillion won). Compared with the same period last year, 99% of operating profit has evaporated. The operating margin, which once topped 14% and was considered remarkable in the premium car manufacturing industry, has plunged to 0.2%.
In Korea, Porsche remains so popular that buyers still have to wait more than a year for new cars. According to the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA), Porsche Korea sold 8,021 vehicles from January to September 2025, up 3.1% from a year earlier (7,780). The bestsellers were the Cayenne (3,502) and Panamera (1,801).
The gap between the passionate love shown in the Korean market and the global market reveals the exact cause of Porsche's global performance collapse. The Cayenne and Panamera, which Korean consumers embraced, are the high-margin internal combustion and hybrid models where Porsche has traditionally been strong. By contrast, experts said this year's evaporation of Porsche's global profit began with a hasty bet on pure electric vehicles (EVs).
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said Porsche is paying the price for a "premature bet on electric vehicles." As EV demand lagged market expectations, Porsche hurriedly revised the pace and strategy of related product development. It fully halted development of a new pure electric SUV platform that had been ambitiously in the works. Some launches of new EVs were pushed back.
According to automotive trade outlets such as Automotive News, this was not simply a failure of demand forecasting. After successfully applying the electric vehicle platform PPE (Premium Platform Electric) to the new Macan SUV, Porsche struggled to develop the next-generation EV platform SSP (Scalable Systems Platform). Within parent company Volkswagen Group, development of this platform has been delayed for years. Porsche had planned to base its next-generation large EV SUV and Panamera EV on SSP, but as this plan unraveled, massive losses occurred.
Instead, Porsche redirected resources back to the well-selling internal combustion and hybrid lines. The decision to extend production of internal combustion and hybrid models like the Cayenne and Panamera, which are selling briskly in Korea, into the 2030s came in this context.
The problem is that astronomical costs arose during the strategy shift. Porsche booked 2.7 billion euros (about 4 trillion won) in special expenses in its results for the first nine months of 2025. By year-end, these expenses are expected to total 3.1 billion to 3.2 billion euros (about 4.6 trillion to 4.7 trillion won). Of that, 1.8 billion euros (about 2.6 trillion won) are losses tied to the scrapped EV platform. Chief Financial Officer Jochen Breckner said, "We are consciously accepting a temporary deterioration in results to strengthen long-term profitability."
The China market, once a golden goose for Porsche, is also crumbling this year. Sales in China plunged 26% in the first nine months. Reuters analyzed that a ruthless price war in China has pushed Porsche into crisis. According to local outlets such as CarNewsChina, Chinese homegrown brands like BYD and Nio have come to dominate the market, leveraging technology and software connectivity on par with foreign automakers. Citing experts, CarNewsChina said scathing reviews now see the Porsche Taycan, once a symbol of technology, as "last-gen tech" among a new generation of Chinese consumers.
Porsche has begun restructuring by cutting its dealer network and workforce in China. In an interview with Reuters, CFO Breckner offered a bleak outlook, saying the China market is unlikely to improve in the near future and that the sales downturn could continue through 2026.
More recently, tariff barriers from the United States have also hurt sales. Porsche has no production plant in the United States. All vehicles are built in Europe and exported. After the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a 15% tariff agreed with the European Union (EU) starting Aug. 1 this year, Porsche estimated the additional tariff burden this year alone at 700 million euros (about 1.04 trillion won). Initially, Porsche absorbed these expenses under the new tariff, but it has begun passing them on to U.S. consumers through higher vehicle prices.
Porsche plans to confront the difficulties head-on through sweeping personnel changes and painful restructuring. Oliver Blume, the chief executive officer (CEO) who led Porsche for the past decade, will step down as Porsche CEO at the end of this year. He will focus solely on his role as CEO of parent company Volkswagen Group. This addresses investors' criticism of his dual roles.
Starting Jan. 1 next year, former McLaren CEO Michael Leiters will take the helm at Porsche. Bloomberg analyzed that appointing Leiters, a "product guy" who worked at Ferrari and McLaren, signals a back to basics shift to return to high-margin core models instead of the failed strategy of mass-market EVs. Porsche is also negotiating a Future Package with its labor union. Reuters reported that, in addition to cutting 2,000 temporary positions, plans for an additional 1,900 job cuts are being discussed.