French auto giant PSA Peugeot Citroen, struggling to cut costs, said on February 15 its 2011 net profit slumped by half and that it would take additional measures to reverse the slide. It said net profit tumbled 48 percent to 588 million euros ($776 million) even as sales rose 7.0 percent to 59.9 billion euros.
Operating profit dropped 27 percent to 1.3 billion euros but the core auto business was in the red with a loss of 92 million euros at this level.
PSA said it would increase its cost cutting plan to 1.0 billion euros from the 800 million euros announced in October which included thousands of job losses across its European operations.
PSA said it would also sell assets to raise 1.5 billion euros.
The company gave no specific forecasts for this year, saying its main objective was to reduce its debt of 3.4 billion euros at end-2011. It said it expected the French auto market to shrink 10 percent this year, with Europe down 5.0 percent as a whole but there should be gains in China, Latin America and Russia.
The company, France's largest automaker and Europe's second-largest after Germany's Volkswagen, employs more than 205,000 people around the world, including 100,000 in France. It employs 167,000 people in total in Europe.
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