Record year for Renault
February 10, 2017
French automaker Renault said Friday it logged a record year in 2016, pointing to a near-20-percent profit jump year on year.
The company said its net earnings leapt by 19.7 percent last year to 3.54 billion euros ($3.77 billion) on a 13.1-percent increase in revenues to 51.2 billion euros.
The carmaker attributed the strong performance to a surge in registrations of the group's Renault, Dacia and Samsung Motors brands to 3.18 million vehicles globally.
Challenging market environment
"We have achieved these very good results despite the fact that a number of the countries that count a lot for us and which were strong in the past are still at lower levels," Financial Director Clotilde Delbos said in a statement, citing Brazil, Russia and Iran.
In January, Paris prosecutors announced they were probing Renault over possible cheating on diesel emissions. The carmaker announced Friday it would not set aside any provisions for potential financial fallout from the probe.
Rival French automaker PSA Group was also referred to prosecutors on Thursday over suspected diesel emissions cheating. The decision was a blow to the maker of Peugeot, Citroen and DS cars as its diesel technology had until recently escaped serious criticism in the wake of the Volkswagen pollution scandal.
hg/jd (AFP, Reuters, EFE)