Volkswagen keeps outlook as global set-up offsets supply chain woes

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Volkswagen, Europe's top carmaker, on Wednesday stuck to its outlook for the current year after its global production network helped it offset supply chain disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic.

The group continues to expect sales to rise 8%-13% and an operating profit margin of 7.0%-8.5% in 2022, also due to an improvement in the availability of crucial automotive chips in the second half of the year.

"As a truly global company, we have extensive production capacities in all major growth and sales markets worldwide," Chief Executive Herbert Diess said in a statement.

"Volkswagen's global set up helped us to mitigate many of the adverse effects we are currently seeing."

The company, which reported preliminary results for the first quarter last month, reported sales of 62.7 billion euros for the first three months of the year, up 0.6% year-on-year.

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz, Editing by Miranda Murray and Paul Carrel)