Škoda against the group

In short

In the first nine months of 2026 Škoda Auto reported an operating profit of 1,923 million euro. That is 27 times the 71 million euro reported by the whole Volkswagen Group, and about a fifth of the 8.8 billion euro the group earned before special items.

The group figure is what is left after 8.7 billion euro of special items, 6.4 billion of it a goodwill write-down on Porsche.

In October 2026 Süddeutsche Zeitung and Volkswagen's world works council reported internal guidelines to freeze pay across the group until 2030. Volkswagen does not comment. The Škoda union says management presented the same demand, bonuses included, at staff assemblies.

The Škoda results bonus for 2025 was 120,000 crowns, about one and a half months of average pay and at least four times what a 3 percent tariff rise adds in a year.

The position: freezing the group's most competitive cost base does not fix the uncompetitive one, and at Škoda the dispute will be about the bonus. Next read: 31 March 2027, the day Škoda's collective agreement ends.

Core claim

Text as posted. Corrections are in the log at the bottom, not in this text.

Škoda made more money than whole Volkswagen Group.

And Škoda is inside that group.

Nine months of 2026, operating profit: Škoda 1,923 million euro. VW group, all brands together 71M.

How can part be bigger than the whole?

When the whole books 8.7 billion of "special items" (write-down on Porsche). Without them the group made 8.8 billion... and one silly Czech brand is still a fifth of that.

Same platforms and parent, so whats going on:

• Škoda 1923 million, margin 8.3 percent.
• Volkswagen brand 813 millions, margin 1.3 percent (2.6 before the special items).
• SEAT and Cupra 6 millions.

Now let’s assume you manage this group. What you do with the one brand that... kinda works?

The CFO said it last week, Škoda shows: "what can be achieved with first-class products based on Volkswagen platforms", on "a highly competitive cost base".

So that's well known to them, and on the same call: "We must accelerate and broaden our efforts to structurally lower our cost base." Well you mean they are competitive, so lets cut costs more?

How it looks in practice? Internal guidelines to HR managers worldwide, in force since early October: pay freeze until 2030. (made public by the works council), Volkswagen does not comment on speculation. And worldwide means also Mladá Boleslav - by the union’s account, management told staff in October what the group wants: zero until 2030, bonuses included.

The union answered this week, quite politely: no strike over pay, because of the customers (I'd say thats responsibl: we ship the best so lets continue). But if the reward goes, the voluntary overtime and the weekend shifts go with it. I think that is quite important part of Czech reality and also differentiation that lets Czechs produce much more cars per per employee. Freezing the competitive cost base looks for me ad a very strange way to fix the uncompetitive one. And in Boleslav the fight will not be only about the tariff. It will be about the bonus, the one paid on results - and those results are the best of the group’s volume brands.

LinkedIn post

Disclosure

The author holds a small number of Volkswagen shares. Nothing on this page is investment advice.

Claims and grades

CONFIRMED: two independent sources, both linked. SINGLE-SOURCE: one. PRIMARY DOCUMENT: quoted from the document of record, here a company's own published results. PARTY STATEMENT: what one side says, in its own words, not confirmed by the other side. DERIVED: author's calculation, inputs in Method.

Key numbers: operating result by brand, January to September

Million euro, as reported. Source: Volkswagen Group, nine-month results, 29 Oct 2026, table by brand group; brands inside the Brand Group Core from Volkswagen Brand Group Core, 30 Oct 2026. Status: PRIMARY DOCUMENT.

Before special items of 8.7 billion euro the group's operating result is 8.8 billion euro, 3.8 percent of sales.

Key numbers: pay at Škoda Auto

Method

Basis. Operating result as reported, after special items, January to September 2026, in million euro. Margin is operating result divided by sales revenue, the figure Volkswagen prints as operating return on sales or operating margin. The group and the brands are on the same basis and the same period.

Škoda against the group. 1,923 / 71 = 27.1 times on the reported basis. 1,923 / 8,800 = 21.9 percent of the group's result before special items. 0.071 + 8.7 = 8.77, which Volkswagen prints as 8.8 billion. 6.4 / 8.7 = 74 percent of the special items are the Porsche goodwill write-down.

Margins recomputed from the tables. Škoda 1,923 / 23,132 = 8.31 percent. Volkswagen Passenger Cars 813 / 61,953 = 1.31 percent. SEAT and Cupra 6 / 11,109 = 0.05 percent, printed by Volkswagen as 0.1. The eight result lines of Volkswagen's group table (Core, Progressive, Sport Luxury, CARIAD, Battery, Trucks, Group Mobility, Other) add up to 71. The four brands shown inside the Brand Group Core add up to 3,207 million; Volkswagen's total for the brand group is 4,326 million and the release does not itemise the difference.

Where the special items sit. The Volkswagen brand's margin is 2.6 percent before special items and 1.3 after, about 0.8 billion euro on 61,953 million of revenue. The Brand Group Core's margin is 4.9 before and 4.1 after, about 0.85 billion on 106,417 million. So nearly all of the brand group's special items are at the Volkswagen brand, and Škoda's release names none. The group table's line Other moved from minus 2,662 to minus 8,881 million while Sport Luxury, the Porsche line, shows plus 1,493 million.

The bonus against the tariff. 120,000 / 81,691 = 1.47 months of average earnings, or 12.2 percent of a year (81,691 x 12 = 980,292). Three percent of a full year of average earnings is 29,409 crowns. Tariff pay is only part of earnings, so a 3 percent tariff rise adds less than that, and the bonus is at least 4.1 times one year's tariff rise.

Limits

• The pay freeze is not confirmed by Volkswagen. It is known from a newspaper report of internal documents and from the works council and IG Metall. The document itself is not public.
• The guideline is an instruction to HR managers for planning. Pay is set in local bargaining, and the works council's own statement says so. What it becomes in each country is open.
• What management told Škoda staff is the union's account. Škoda Auto has neither confirmed nor denied it.
• "More than whole VW Group" holds for January to September 2026 and on the reported basis only. Before special items the group earned 8.8 billion euro and Škoda is about a fifth of it. In the same nine months of 2025 the group earned 5,408 million euro and Škoda 1,790 million, a third of it.
• Brand results are segment figures inside one group. The prices at which brands buy platforms, engines and software from each other are not public, so a brand margin is not the margin of a stand-alone company. SEAT and Cupra sit on the same platforms and report 0.1 percent.
• "Volume brands" means the Brand Group Core. Volkswagen's nine-month tables do not show Lamborghini, Bentley or Ducati separately, so no claim is made about the best margin in the whole group.
• Škoda's own interim CEO expects "even greater competition and margin pressure" in the coming year as electric cars take a larger share. The 8.3 percent is a nine-month figure, not a forecast.
• The average earnings figure includes the bonuses themselves and comes from one origin, the company's figure as carried by ČTK. The 2025 tariff round rests on one carrier.
• The union's paper could not be opened directly, its site blocks automated reading. Its statements are quoted through ČTK, Aktuálně.cz, Radio Prague International and Hospodářské noviny.

Falsifier

The posted text states a position and no dated call. Stated on this page, what would make the position wrong.

If the agreement that replaces the one ending on 31 March 2027 raises Škoda's tariffs and leaves the results bonus as it is, the group's freeze did not reach Mladá Boleslav and the post's premise fails.

If the tariff is frozen and the dispute is settled with the results bonus neither cut nor contested, the claim that the fight is about the bonus fails.

Next read: 31 March 2027.

Corrections log

(empty; corrections will be dated and appended here, never edited in place)

Related

• Evidence index
• Six weeks
• VW against VW.
• Cars per employee
• The auto labor math nobody expects

Sources

Read date for all items: 6 November 2026.

• Results: Volkswagen Group, nine-month results, 29 Oct 2026; Volkswagen Brand Group Core, 30 Oct 2026; Škoda Auto, nine months 2026, 30 Oct 2026.
• The call of 29 October 2026: call transcript, Investing.com, 29 Oct 2026; call transcript, StockAnalysis, 29 Oct 2026; CFO Dive, 29 Oct 2026.
• The pay guidelines: Reuters via RTÉ, 19 Oct 2026; IG Metall Wolfsburg, 19 Oct 2026; dpa via ZDFheute, 19 Oct 2026.
• Škoda, October: ČTK via Newstream, 22 Oct 2026; Radio Prague International, 22 Oct 2026; Hospodářské noviny, 23 Oct 2026.
• Škoda, November: Aktuálně.cz, 5 Nov 2026; ČTK via Newstream, 5 Nov 2026; Škodovácký odborář, the union's paper, 2026 issues (not opened, the site blocks automated reading).
• Pay at Škoda: Škoda Mobil, the company paper, 2 Apr 2026; ČTK, 11 Mar 2026; ČTK via Newstream, 11 Mar 2026; Rádio MB, 2025 pay round.