POAHY Porsche Automobile Holding SE (PK)

STUTTGART—Porsche AG, the German sports-car maker, warned that it won't repeat the robust sales and profit growth of recent years this year, citing heavy investment in electric-car technology and possibly sluggish global luxury-car demand after record earnings in 2015.

The company, best known for its 911 sports car and Cayenne luxury sport -utility vehicle, said on Friday net profit rose 6% to €2.33 billion ($2.59 billion) in the year to end-December on a 25% jump in revenue to €21.5 billion after a best-ever year of vehicle sales.

Porsche, a unit of Volkwagen AG, said a first full year of sales of its popular new Macan compact luxury SUV contributed to a 19% rise in volume to 225,121 vehicles.

Company officials said the 2015 results made Porsche the most profitable car company in the world. The auto maker reported an unchanged operating profit margin of 15.8%.

But they warned against "exaggerated expectations" for the future.

The company forecast only a slight increase in revenue and flat earnings this year—though fell short of reducing its profit target—noting lower profit margins from its growing sales of luxury SUVs and heavy investment in new technology to meet stricter emissions regulations. Porsche is also ramping up spending to join the growing club of makers of luxury electric cars.

"We have a very clear profit [margin] target of 15%," Chief Executive Oliver Blume told reporters at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart. "Of course, it is possible that from time to time we will come in above or below, but we are sticking to the target."

A slowdown in profit at Porsche could spell trouble for its parent Volkswagen, which is embroiled in an emissions-cheating scandal and could face tens of billions of dollars in fines and compensation for customers. Porsche is one of Volkswagen's main sources of profit.

The scandal has spilled over to Porsche. The company's Cayenne SUV uses a tainted 3-liter engine made by Volkswagen's Audi AG unit.

Chief Finance Officer Lutz Meschke said, however, that potential costs to Porsche from the scandal would be moderate.

Turning to the capital costs that are set to take a toll on Porsche future earnings, Mr. Meschke cited development of electric vehicles to meet CO2 emissions targets. Electric and hybrid versions of the company's Cayenne and Panamera models cost €10,000 more than their conventional versions of these models.

"You can't get these additional costs back through correspondingly higher prices," said Mr. Meschke.

Porsche, under pressure to produce luxury electric cars to take on niche rival Tesla Motors Inc., is also planning a "Tesla-killer" battery-electric sporty sedan that it calls Mission-E. The company plans to invest €1 billion in a new factory to build the car on top of the costs to develop it.

"We are committed to electric mobility. Of course, there will be something else after Mission-E," Mr. Blume said.

Porsche is also investing about €300 million a year to develop digital technology to connect its sports cars to the Internet.

Write to William Boston at william.boston@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 11, 2016 08:15 ET (13:15 GMT)

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