Porsche held a Capital Markets Day at its Weissach R&D center in Germany on October 7, where CEO Michael Leiters unveiled the "Sportwagenschmiede '35" strategy update through 2035: average prices for top-of-the-range models will rise about 20%, to €330,000. The sports-car maker has decided it would rather sell fewer cars than earn less.
The core numbers come from the Wall Street Journal and Reuters: Porsche plans to lift the average selling price of its top-end models (roughly the top 10,000 vehicles a year) by about 20%, to €330,000 (about $371,596). Customisation-business revenue is to grow sixfold, and from 2030 the company aims to launch at least one "brand-defining" new product every year. "The ultimate goal is to further strengthen our unique sports-car brand — across all model lines and with new, highly desirable models in particularly high-margin segments," Leiters said.
Leiters told investors he wants to reinforce Porsche as "the world's most desirable sports car manufacturer," benchmarking the brand against Ferrari and Louis Vuitton, and to build "a smaller but stronger and more resilient business." The logic is value over volume: keep investing in combustion engines and plug-in hybrids while not abandoning electrification — and the 911 will not get a pure-electric version, he confirmed. On the product side, a mid-engine supercar architecture is coming that could underpin a future flagship line above the 911; the stake in Manthey Racing GmbH rises from 51% to 67%; a new SUV positioned above the Cayenne is under consideration; and model variants will be cut by about 20%.
The pivot follows dismal results: Porsche's 2025 operating margin collapsed to 1.1% (from nearly 9% in 2024), and deliveries came in under 280,000 (279,449), down about 10% year on year — nearly 10% below the level at its 2022 IPO. The new strategy lowers the break-even point to under 200,000 vehicles a year; mid-term targets call for a 10–15% operating return on sales, 15% long term. On costs: 9,000 layoffs already announced, plus a new 40% cut in management positions; mid-term production labor costs down up to 30%, sales and distribution down 20%, R&D down 20%, materials down 10%.
China is the sore spot: first-half 2026 deliveries there fell nearly a third, China's share of global sales has dropped from more than a third to about 15% and is expected to keep falling, and the dealer network will shrink from over 150 to about 80 by the end of 2026. Analysts are split: Deutsche Bank raised its price target from €45 to €55 and reiterated Buy, but the 21-analyst average target is only €46.01 (a Hold consensus). Next up: a pre-close call on October 13 and third-quarter results on October 27.