Seat's profits plummet by 90% due to tariffs and fierce competition.

The Spanish company is suffering from rising raw material costs and tariffs imposed on its Tavascan model, manufactured in China.

The automotive company Seat SA , owned by the Volkswagen group, faced very adverse market conditions during the first six months of the year, in line with the crisis that the automotive sector is going through and which is being aggravated by external factors such as trade or regulatory policies .

The company, which markets the Seat and Cupra brands, ended the first half of 2025 with operating profits of €38 million, representing a sharp decrease of more than 90% compared to the historical figure of €406 million it recorded in the same months of 2024. It is also far from the record of €633 million it achieved at the end of 2024.

In its half-yearly financial report, Seat's parent company, the German group Volkswagen, explains that the operating results of Seat and Cupra were affected in the period by adverse factors such as increased competition in strategic markets, as well as the change in the mix of models it sells and the rise in the cost of raw materials .

However, one of the main obstacles that the company based in Martorell (Barcelona) has encountered in the first part of the year has been the impact on its accounts of the tariffs on electric cars imported from China to the European Union , since the firm produces its Tavascan model in China and has been forced to assume part of the additional costs caused by the tariffs.

At the end of the semester, Seat and Cupra achieved a turnover of 7.598 billion euros, a figure almost 2% lower than the 7.752 billion earned a year earlier, despite the push that electric models such as the Cupra Born and Tavascan are experiencing.

Vehicle sales, which include Audi A1 units manufactured at the Martorell factory, reached 322,000 units between January and June of this year, representing a 6.3% year-on-year decrease.

For its part, the Volkswagen Group completed the first six months of the year with a net profit of 4.477 billion euros, representing a 38.5% drop compared to the same period in 2024, while revenue remained stable (-0.3%), reaching 158.364 billion euros.

Operating income also contracted in the first half of the year, falling to 6.707 billion euros, a 32.8% decrease, with an operating margin of 4.2%, compared to the 6.3% recorded by the company in the same period of the previous year.

The company's results were severely impacted by tariffs imposed by the Trump administration in the United States , with an impact of 1.3 billion euros, as well as by provisions made by Audi, Volkswagen Turismos and Cariad for 700 million euros in connection with their restructuring process and costs related to emissions regulations.

By the end of 2025, the group anticipates continued challenges related to geopolitics and tariff pressures , so it expects to maintain its revenue at the same levels as in 2024, while its operating margin will range between 4% and 5%.