Welcome to the intro statement of our Analysts and Investors Conference 2025. My name is Björn Scheib, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations here at Porsche AG. With me are Oliver Blume, Chairman of the Executive Board, and Jochen Breckner, Member of the Executive Board for Finance and IT. Both gentlemen will give you an update on our 2024 results, our strategy, and the outlook on 2025. Before we begin, let me remind you that any forward-looking statement to be made during this intro statement are subject to the risks and uncertainties mentioned in the Safe Harbor Statement included in the Porsche Materials Online. This statement will also be governed by this language. With that, I would love now to hand over to Olli.
There is no substitute, nothing more desirable. That is Porsche. That has been our aspiration for more than 75 years. I can promise you one thing: it will stay that way, no matter how the world around us changes. A warm welcome from my side as well. Today, much will be about change. The world is becoming more digital, more connected, and at the same time, more volatile. The environment has changed rapidly, and so have the needs of our customers. So have the markets. In this challenging environment, we have delivered very solid results in 2024. At the same time, we have made important adjustments at Porsche, and more will follow in the coming weeks and months. We initiated a change in the Board of Management, which was planned long in advance. Jochen Breckner has taken over the Finance and IT Department.
Matthias Becker, the Sales and Marketing Department. Jochen is here with us today. He will explain our numbers in detail. Later, we will answer your questions together. Three questions will guide us for the next minutes: What was, what is, what will be? We will look back on the year 2024 that lies behind us. We will assess the current situation and the general conditions, and we look at how we are responding and how we want to steer Porsche in the future. 2024 was characterized by the biggest product offensive ever at Porsche. We completely renewed four of six model series and launched them in the markets. If we include the Cayenne at the end of 2023, there were even five. We currently have what is probably the most attractive and youngest product portfolio that Porsche has ever had.
We are receiving excellent feedback for the new products from our customers and via the media all over the world. Porsche at its best: highly emotional combustion engines, superior hybrid vehicles, and extremely powerful electric vehicles. With these three drivetrains, we fulfill our customers' wishes, always with the aim of offering maximum driving pleasure. Quality is our top priority. We strive to work on improvements day by day. In the independent J.D. Power study in 2024, we ranked first in our segment in the U.S. This motivates us. We have also made further progress in the number of claims per vehicle and are achieving historic best values at Porsche in 2024, despite the many new launches. Here, too, we fight for every detail. Last year, we were more successful on the world's racetracks than ever before.
We won Drivers title in the WEC and victory in all classes in the American IMSA and in Formula E. Pascal Wehrlein won the Drivers' World Championship for the Porsche Works team. We want to build on this this year. We got off a successful start with the first and third place at the 24 Hours of Daytona. The numbers show Porsche is in a robust position. We can react well and flexibly to fluctuations in the market. In 2024, we were only just below the previous year in terms of deliveries, despite the significant decline in China and despite the fact that, as usual, the new models will only be introduced gradually in all market variants and derivatives. With the exception of China, we have achieved new records in all other regions of the world.
The balance between the individual regions has also improved once again, making us less dependent on individual markets. The key financial figures reflect the high level of tensions under which the entire automotive industry is operating. Of course, in the long term, we at Porsche are pursuing higher ambitions. We are sticking to that. At the same time, it was an exceptionally strong performance by the entire Porsche team to deliver such a robust result under the current exceptional conditions. I would go even further. They are to be valued distinctly stronger than in many successful years before in which we operated in a much more stable environment. Thank you for this fighting spirit and the great passion to get the best out of it. Let's briefly summarize up to this point and look ahead to the current and upcoming years.
In a generally volatile political and economic environment, we continue to face three major challenges: the structural market change in China, which has consequences for sales of our vehicles from today's perspective in the long term, the slower ramp-up of electromobility with a need for action in our product strategy, and the tense situation in the supply chain with consequences for the cost and availability of our products. At the same time, we at Porsche are building on a solid foundation, on strong products, and an almost completely renewed portfolio, on a valuable brand with global appeal, on a loyal customer base around the globe, and on a financial robustness that we have built up over the years. We are using this to invest resolutely in our future. In doing so, we are relying on our proven and successful Porsche strategy.
In order to adapt it to the changed framework conditions, we have developed it extensively over the past year. After all, only a strategy that is regularly and pragmatically adapted will be successful in the long term. This allows us to respond to the new situation in the market with the greatest possible flexibility. In particular, we have adjusted our product strategy in all segments. Although the ramp-up of electromobility has slowed down in some regions, we continue to see e-mobility as the technology of the future, and we want to make it a success in the long term. However, we currently anticipate a much longer transition phase. As before, our product strategy includes a balanced range of combustion engines, hybrids, and electric sports cars. We are expanding and extending our portfolio of combustion engines and hybrid models. We are consistently pursuing our electrification strategy.
We will also further strengthen our brand essence with an extensive expansion of our Exclusive Manufaktur and the Sonderwunsch Program. We will remain true to our focus on special models and limited editions. These have always generated a great deal of appeal. Unit sales are still not a benchmark for us. Value goes over volume, especially in the current environment in which we operate. This motivates us to make our company even more robust and further reduce the break-even point. This means being even more independent of respective volume scenarios. We are adapting our structures accordingly. We are reducing capacities and complexity. At the same time, we are strengthening the exclusivity of our brand. Jochen Breckner will now guide you through the numbers in detail. Jochen, please, it's up to you.
Oliver, thank you very much. It's my pleasure to present you our financial year 2024 results.
Our largest model offensive in the company's history strongly influenced the business performance of the Porsche AG Group. These vehicle ramp-ups had a significant impact on sales, inventories, depreciation and amortization, as well as research and development costs and CapEx. In addition, the overall challenging economic and political environment, the slower transformation to electric mobility, and market developments in China have had an impact on the business situation. Still, the company was able to perform strongly under these conditions. We achieved our return on sales guidance as well as a cash conversion of more than 70%. Porsche sets ambitious goals every year, not just for model lines and derivatives, but also for our sales regions and individual markets. However, the focus is not on pure sales volume, but particularly on sales quality and balanced demand and supply.
In the financial year 2024, Porsche was robustly positioned in terms of vehicles sold, despite various model changes and the challenging market situation in China. In total, we sold 313,000 vehicles. This is 6% less than in 2023. Porsche counteracted the decline in deliveries in China with an increased focus on sales in other regions. As a result, our global sales footprint has become even more balanced and more resilient. The Cayenne was the best-selling model series with more than 100,000 vehicles, followed by the Macan with 83,000 vehicles sold. Of these, 24,000 units were the new all-electric Macan. At the same time, declines were recorded for the Taycan, the Panamera, and the 911. This is due to the current model changes. In addition, the ramp-up of electric mobility has been slower than planned overall. Now let's take a look at our incoming orders.
These remain robust in a challenging environment, and we have a decently filled order book returning to normal levels after the supply shortages of the previous years. Furthermore, we expect positive impacts on orders and an additional positive pricing effect from our upcoming derivatives. Also, the contribution coming from individualization is expected to remain strong. Let's now take a look at our 2024 results. In a continuously challenging macro environment, we achieved solid results, benefiting from our strong pricing, mix, and continued strong customer demand. We have kept executing our goals by strong teamwork and agility. Stringent with our strategy, we kept investing in product, innovation, software, and brand. The Porsche AG Group revenue slightly fell to EUR 40 billion in the 2024 financial year. This corresponds to a decline of 1% compared to the previous year.
Increased pricing on the newly launched products, continued focus on vehicle mix, and individualization put us in a position to nearly compensate for the revenue shortfall from lower unit sales. In parallel, the cost of sales rose by EUR 800 million to EUR 29.8 billion. Accordingly, the ratio to sales revenue rose by around 300 basis points to 74.2%. This was mainly due to higher material costs as well as higher development work and ramp-up costs in connection with the renewal of the model range. In 2024, again, we had to deal with higher D&A of more than EUR 300 million compared to the previous year. In combination with the group sales revenues, this translated into quite unfavorable fixed cost coverage. Selling expenses rose by more than EUR 200 million to EUR 3.1 billion, an increase by 60 basis points to 7.7% in relation to sales revenues.
The increase is due to effects such as higher costs for strengthening customer-oriented services and digitalization initiatives. In consequence, the operating result decreased accordingly from EUR 7.3 billion to EUR 5.6 billion. Porsche AG Group's result reflects the most extensive product changeover offensive during a period of macro uncertainty and fragile ecosystems. Still, Porsche was able to achieve its updated guidance on group return on sales and significantly overachieved its net cash flow margin target. In the financial year 2024, the financial result fell significantly to minus EUR 400 million. The decrease is mainly due to the current earnings effect from equity-accounted investments as well as special effects around batteries and connectivity. In consequence, the profit after tax decreased by EUR 1.6 billion to EUR 3.6 billion in 2024. Earnings per ordinary share amounted to EUR 3.94. The earnings per preference share amounted to EUR 3.95.
Let's now focus on our automotive business. Here, we achieved revenues of EUR 36.4 billion. Key drivers here were lower unit sales by 6%, partially offset by our focus on stringent pricing, mix, and individualization. Thus, we were able to further increase automotive revenues per vehicle sold from EUR 112,000 to around EUR 117,000. The automotive business earned EUR 5.3 billion at a margin of 14.5%. While price and mix had been quite supportive, higher supply chain-related costs as well as higher development and ramp-up costs impacted the operating result negatively. Also, higher D&A on capitalized R&D in connection with the renewal of the model range were a headwind. The net cash flow for the automotive segment was EUR 3.7 billion. This figure includes cash outflows of EUR 250 million in connection with pension plans funded by external plan assets.
Here, we also benefited from a significant reduction of inventories, especially in relation to our launch activities. The resulting automotive net cash flow margin of 10.2% was above forecast. In this context, let me draw your attention to the cash conversion of more than 70% again. Surely, this is a reflection of our strong business model. Financial services revenue increased to EUR 3.9 billion. The segment's operating profit decreased to EUR 278 million in the 2024 financial year. The decline was mainly due to the valuation of interest rate hedging transactions and derivatives outside hedge accounting in the context of regular refinancing activities. As a result, the operating return on sales in financial services fell to 7.1%. With 39.6%, the penetration rate was a touch lower than last year. It is also very important to mention that the risk profile of our portfolio remained robust.
Let's now focus on our capital allocation. In the financial year 2024, research and development costs in the automotive segment amounted to EUR 2.5 billion after EUR 2.8 billion in 2023. The resulting R&D ratio was at 6.9%. The decrease in 2024 was influenced by an accounting reclassification. Capitalized research and development costs amounted to EUR 1.6 billion and were significantly below the comparable figure of EUR 2.1 billion in 2023. Accordingly, the capitalization ratio was 63%, is more than 10 percentage points lower than in 2023. The depreciation and amortization of capitalized automotive development costs amounted to EUR 1.1 billion, almost EUR 200 million higher than in 2023. Based on the drivers just outlined, the total automotive research and development costs accounted for in the P&L were at EUR 2 billion, more than EUR 300 million higher compared to the previous year.
This also underlines the strength of our 2024 results with the current environment. More than half of R&D expenditure in the reporting period was spent for the conversion of the product range towards electromobility. Parallel to the efforts in the field of electromobility, model series with combustion engine or plug-in hybrid technology are also being further developed. At the end of 2024, our automotive net liquidity was at EUR 8.6 billion. Based on a strong cash flow and a very healthy balance sheet, the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board will propose a dividend payment of EUR 2.1 billion for the past financial year to the annual general meeting. That's EUR 2.30 per ordinary share and EUR 2.31 per preference share. Let us now move to the outlook for 2025.
Our forecast for the financial year 2025 is based on today's framework conditions in terms of global conflicts and tensions as well as fragile supply chains. In addition, we do not expect demand in China to recover in the foreseeable future, and the transformation towards electric mobility remains behind previous expectations. Based on our brand principles, we will also continue to align demand and supply according to our value-over-volume approach. Overall, the Porsche AG Group expects vehicle sales to be below 2024. As part of its 2025 sales forecast, the company expects a share of purely battery-powered vehicles of up to 20%-22%. In the forecast for the financial year 2025, it is also assumed that the situation in the supply chain will remain challenging and that additional costs in the supplier area must be expected.
This is due to individual delivery delays, fluctuations in the number of units, and possible insolvencies. In addition, we expect a significantly higher expensed R&D resulting from higher R&D budget, a lower capitalization rate, and higher D&A on capitalized R&D due to our product and strategic measures. Oliver had previously explained our strategy. This is closely linked to our Road to 20 program, which is to be understood as the foundation for our so-called strategy house and applies across the board to all its elements. The Road to 20 is our continued strategic program targeting all aspects of the company that shall enable the general strategic long-term ambition level of an operating return on sales of more than 20%.
To this end, we have defined specific targets in six fields of action, which include fixed costs, costs of goods sold for series cars and cars under development, as well as sales levers, including pricing. And onward in 2025, our activities will be intensified. Against the backdrop of the changed and challenging market environment, extensive measures have been initiated to strengthen the company's financial resilience and profitability, also in the short and medium term. These measures include the expansion of the product portfolio to include additional models with combustion engines or plug-in hybrids, the expansion of the Sonderwunsch Program and Exclusive Manufaktur, and the adjustments to the company organization. As you know from our ad hoc announcement, the total impact of these combined measures on the operating profit and the automotive net cash flow is expected to amount to approximately EUR 800 million this year.
Around EUR 300 million of this burden are related to product, exclusive, and software. Around EUR 200 million are attributable to battery-related activities. These mainly result from the first-time consolidation of Porsche businesses around batteries, namely the Cellforce Group and V4Smart. The remaining EUR 300 million are related to the organizational changes, which also cover the announced workforce measures. As you know, we have initiated to rescale our cost structure to approximately 250,000 vehicles per year. Having said that, let me emphasize again, we are talking about our cost structure and not about targeted sales volume. With this initiative, it is also clear that we have to increase our financial resilience also in terms of personnel costs. Among other things, Porsche also expects to cut around 3,900 job positions until 2029, 2,000 of them being expired and expiring fixed-term contracts.
In order to do so, we will use demographics and socially acceptable measures. In addition to these immediate measures, management and Works Council will negotiate an additional structural package in the second half of the year. We want to use this to make the company even more efficient and resilient in the mid and long term. First benefits are expected to support our results and cash flow from the next year onwards. In this context, let me also give some more color on our software activities. Regarding our future flexible and attractive product portfolio, Porsche will benefit in its software development from synergies with other brands of the Volkswagen Group, as well as other partnerships. Key goals in the development of our software architectures are the special customer experiences, the optimization of cost-effectiveness, as well as time-to-market launch.
The development of the software platforms is based on clearly defined responsibilities among the brands. In the case of BEVs, we are working in a partnership with the Volkswagen Rivian Joint Venture. For our software projects as well as for product and exclusiveness, we budgeted significant on-top investments. These are based on the adjustment of the product strategy and the cycle plan. In order to afford these adjustments, we have reprioritized projects and set aside some additional spendings. Thus, total spending stays at the current level. We are still targeting an overall lower combined R&D and CapEx spend in following years. Considering the above-mentioned factors, Porsche forecasts for the financial year 2025 group sales revenues of EUR 39 billion-EUR 40 billion, group return on sales between 10% and 12%, and an automotive net cash flow margin between 7% and 9%. This guidance does not include any potential tariff scenario.
In Q1 2025, we will also continue to follow our value-over-volume strategy. Based on our current assumptions, we will have a slow start into 2025. Let's now also look at 2026. We must assume that our company-specific framework will be embossed by the challenging geopolitical framework, the slower-than-expected BEV transformation, and the related persisting on-top costs in our supply chain. On the other hand, we expect support from a better sales mix resulting from an improved product availability. In addition, we expect the first benefits from our organizational adjustment. As such, we target an improved profitability compared to 2025. With respect to our future sales footprint, we do not expect a significant recovery of the demand in China. Instead, we assume that the importance of our other regions will further increase.
Our strategy in China is directed to safeguard and restore the profitability through our value-over-volume oriented product and service offering, as well as a clear brand and customer focus. At the same time, the substantial changes in demand in China require continuous and dynamic right-sizing of our dealer network to match market needs. Here, we plan to reduce the number of points of sales from 144 to around 100 in 2027. We will also realign our local organization to the new conditions. Based on our expected benefits from our Road to 20 program, the outlined expectations for the Chinese market, the required higher flexibility for the expected transition period in markets, and expected continued fragile supply chains, we target a group return of sales of 15%-17% in the midterm. This does also not include a tariff scenario. However, our general strategic ambition remains sporty.
Under more favorable and stable worldwide conditions, a strategic return of 20% remains the general reach for our desirable brand. However, in view of the extensive measures and the expected framework conditions, we are talking about the 2030s, and it would be premature to give an exact year for this now. Our expected strong cash conversion and future cash flows should provide us with a strong foundation to partly fund our pension deficit in the midterm. With respect to automotive net liquidity, we target to keep a position of 15%-20% of automotive revenues. In combination with a strong cash conversion, this should enable us to keep our dividend payout target of 50%.
During this transition period and thereafter, finance at Porsche will play a crucial role as co-pilot in driving strategic success by providing data-driven insights, ensuring financial discipline, and enabling informed decision-making, thus contributing to the long-term success of Porsche. With that, I hand over to Oliver Blume. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Jochen. Porsche set standards in electromobility at an early stage with the design as well as the characteristics. There is no doubt about it. We have inspired thousands of customers around the world. After a strong startup phase, it has now become clear we were a step ahead of market developments. The global, rapid, and above all sustainable ramp-up has not yet materialized. We have taken this as an opportunity to revise our product planning in specific areas. Allow me to give you a brief overview.
One area of work was to further strengthen our brand core with additional combustion engine models. Our fans can look forward to new top derivatives of the 911. Our icon is also reviving the legendary style of the 1970s and early 80s in a limited small series from Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur, another collector's item from our Design Heritage Series. Alongside additional product approaches in the core segment of two-door sports cars, we will be expanding the 911 range with a model that will raise the bar even higher. Our fans will be delighted. For the four-door sports cars, we are extending the phase of parallel drivetrains. For example, we will continue to develop and offer the Cayenne and Panamera as combustion and hybrid vehicles well into the 2030s. We are also considering expanding our portfolio.
In the SUV segment, we are examining a new model series that could be launched toward the end of the decade, also with pure combustion and hybrid drive, clearly differentiated from the Macan, which we plan to offer exclusively as an all-electric model. At the same time, the Porsche electric family will continue to grow as planned. We are convinced that the electric drive is a superior, most efficient technology. Our focus in further development is on fast travel and fast charging. This is where we combine best-in-class driving dynamics, charging efficiency, and recuperation performance. An important component of our balanced portfolio is the Cayenne with all three drivetypes. The fourth generation is in the starting blocks, completely redeveloped and redesigned. Without giving too much away, like the Taycan and Macan before, the electric Cayenne will be a true sports car that will set standards in its segment.
In the medium term, our customers can also look forward to a fully electric sports car in the 718 segment, even more dynamic, even more powerful, with a pure driving experience. Of course, these adjustments in product planning have an impact on the BEV ramp-up as a whole. Porsche had one of the most ambitious plans in the entire industry with the goal of delivering more than 80% fully electric sports cars by 2030. Our product strategy would still allow for this. In view of the market developments, however, this is no longer realistic. Our ramp-up will therefore adapt to market developments in general, but we remain ambitious. In 2024, 27% of the vehicles we delivered were electrified already, almost half of them pure electric vehicles, the rest plug-in hybrids. Our portfolio aims to significantly increase this proportion over the next few years.
In addition to the product range, the actual ramp-up depends largely on the structural development of electromobility in the markets. Charging infrastructure, energy prices, incentive systems, and regulatory conditions have a significant influence. We have revised our decarbonization program in light of the changed framework conditions and the dynamics behind them I just mentioned. I would like to emphasize this: climate protection is important to us, and we continue to pursue the goal of making our contribution to reducing CO2 emissions. In 2024, we achieved our decarbonization target. However, it is also clear that sustainability is and remains a joint task for business, politics, and consumers. Regardless of the type of drive at Porsche, we fulfill our customers' dreams and wishes, no matter how individual they may be. Porsche already offers almost infinite possibilities for individualization.
Our range extends from the selection of individual interior and exterior options to completely customized one-offs. Today, we offer more than 1,000 Exclusive Manufaktur options across all model ranges. We were able to double the average sales per vehicle with Exclusive Manufaktur options in this period from 2019 to 2023, and in 2024, it increased by a further 7%. We are already building sports cars in the Exclusive Manufaktur on behalf of customers where the selected options exceed the original vehicle value by many fold. In line with our customers' wishes, we will be significantly expanding our capacities in the coming years. This applies to both the Exclusive Manufaktur options and our Sonderwunsch Program. We are planning to triple the number of vehicle projects in the area of Sonderwunsch. We will also be expanding our Sonderwunsch experience worldwide.
This is a tailor-made experience, for example, during vehicle delivery, and the historic Plant 1 here in Zuffenhausen will play a central role in this. Let's summarize everything briefly and concisely. Porsche achieved a solid result in 2024 in a challenging environment: EUR 5.6 billion operating profit, 14.1% return, net cash flow almost at the level of the record year 2023, and the dividend proposal at the same level of 2023, attractive for our investors. We have achieved record sales in four of our five sales world regions and renewed five of our six model series with the introduction of new products in the markets. The electrification rate was a strong 27%, with a clear upward trend towards the future. The 2024 Motorsport season was one of the strongest ever in the history of Porsche.
We have adapted and further developed our corporate and product strategy to the changed environment and made two new appointments to the Executive Board. In the medium term, we are aiming for a return of 15%-17%, and in the long term, we are sticking to our general ambition of aiming for a group operating return on sales of more than 20%. Jochen has said it: we are deliberately using the year 2025 to further develop Porsche in a targeted manner, to recalibrate, to rescale our product planning, but also our company itself. This will cost more money in the short term and at a time that is already challenging. We do that on purpose because we are convinced that we are setting the right course in the long term to further sharpen our brand, to make our products even more individual, even more exclusive, and even more desirable.
There's no substitute. That is Porsche, and it will stay that way.