Weak China demand has resulted in German sports car maker Porsche delivering 16% fewer vehicles globally in the first nine months of 2026.
Furthermore, factors like the phase-out of the 718 model line and the automaker’s focus on brand value over volume continued to weigh on sales.
“Our focus is on highly desirable sports cars, appealing derivatives and the continued expansion of our individualisation offering,” said board member for sales and marketing Matthias Becker.
While deliveries in China plunged by 33% in the nine months through September, North America, Porsche’s largest market, also fell by 13%, followed by Europe, where, excluding Germany, the downfall ratio was 11%.
While Porsche said third-quarter delivery declines were in line with trends seen in the H1 2026, demand for the iconic 911 remained robust, with nine-month sales rising 12% to 42,217 vehicles worldwide.
Porsche’s German rival Mercedes-Benz too has posted an 8% drop in Q3 car sales, citing challenging market conditions in China.
The latest sales figure was released two days after Porsche’s capital markets day on Wednesday, in which the Stuttgart-based carmaker presented its turnaround strategy.
The strategy aims to restore profit margins with the help of high-end models and its loyal, “deep-pocketed sports car fans” while shrinking the company in line with lower sales volumes.
The automaker, like its parent Volkswagen and other German automakers, is undergoing a major restructuring to address sluggish sales and high costs.
As per CEO Michael Leiters, Porsche’s turnaround plan would see the automaker lowering its future break-even point to fewer than 200,000 units, well below 2025’s total deliveries of 279,449.
However, the latest data indicating a decline in Porsche’s global deliveries should not be surprising, as this trend has persisted in Porsche’s global deliveries since the company’s market listing in 2022.
Since last year, plunging demand in China and tariffs imposed by the United States have affected the sports car maker in two of its most important markets.
During the capital markets day, Leiters sought to assure investors that a focus on high-end sports cars such as the 911 would put the carmaker back on track, with ambitions to boost the selling prices of Porsche’s top 10,000 vehicles.
“We want to reinforce Porsche as the world’s most desirable sports car manufacturer,” Leiters said, pitching a luxury shift to make the brand compete with sector giants like Ferrari.
Leiters, who took over at the start of the year with the task of restructuring the German automaker, said his strategy would focus on cutting costs for now.
Porsche is targeting a group operating margin of 15% in the long term, although it only just expects to return to double digits in the next five years or so, according to the mid-term outlook.
Porsche’s profit margin collapsed in 2025 to 1.1%, far below results in the high teens posted when it went public under Oliver Blume, who is now heading parent Volkswagen’s painful yet radical transformation.
Finance chief Jochen Breckner said sales volumes are expected to remain in line with 2025 levels in the medium term, despite collapsing volumes in China.
Porsche sees the world’s largest automobile market, once its key profit driver, to make up less than 10% of its global sales in the coming years, down from 35% at the start of the decade.
“A recovery in China is not in our plan right now,” Leiters said.
Porsche is also cutting 9,000 positions by 2035, reducing its total workforce by a fifth, as job losses mount in the German automotive industry under pressure from low-cost Chinese rivals.
Alongside existing redundancy programmes and a plan to cut management positions by 40%, Leiters said that lower development and sales costs would make the company more resilient.
The company will also intensify its platform-sharing with fellow Volkswagen brand Audi to save money.
Image Courtesy: Porsche