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Porsche slashes margin target to 6.5-8.5% range

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Sales now expected to reach 37-38 billion euros

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Porsche to release Q1 results later on Tuesday

(Recasts, adds details on results in paragraphs 6-7, comment in

paragraphs 9-10)

April 28 (Reuters) - German luxury sports car maker

Porsche slashed a series of forecasts for 2025, hit

by a toxic mix of weakness in its main market China, rising

supply chain costs and U.S. tariffs that are disrupting the

global car industry.

Porsche late on Monday said U.S. import tariffs, in place

since April at 25%, weighed on its business in April and May,

and it warned that its adjusted outlook does not factor in the

future effects of tariffs.

"Currently it is not yet possible to make a reliable

assessment of the effects for the financial year," Porsche said.

The U.S. tariffs are expected to raise car prices by

thousands of dollars, reducing demand and hurting job growth,

rattling an automobile industry already struggling with a

slowing transition to electric vehicles.

In April, Porsche, which has no U.S. production, said it had

shipped added inventory to the United States to get ahead of

tariffs and kept prices constant for orders made in March.

Porsche said it now expects revenues of between 37 billion

and 38 billion euros in 2025, down from its previous forecast of

39 billion to 40 billion euros. Its profit margin is forecast to

plunge to 6.5-8.5%, down from a previous forecast of 10-12%.

According to the average analyst estimate in LSEG, Porsche's

operating margin is seen at 9.7% on revenues of 38.8 billion

euros.

The carmaker, which at its stock market debut in 2022 had a

higher valuation than its parent company, Volkswagen AG

, has fallen from grace since, struggling in

particular with low sales in China, its top market, where

first-quarter sales dropped 42%.

Bill Russo, CEO of Shanghai-based advisory firm

Automobility, said Chinese customers of electric cars had been

drawn to their domestic brands because of their improved

technological offering.

"No foreign company believed that the Chinese could somehow

build equity that was superior to the foreign brands, especially

the Europeans," he said.

Porsche also said it would no longer pursue plans to expand

high-performance battery production at its Cellforce subsidiary,

and it cited a decline in demand in China for all-electric

luxury cars.

Porsche is scheduled to release first-quarter results later

on Tuesday.

($1 = 0.8767 euros)