Luxury carmaker Porsche 9-month profit drops to 4.6B

Automaker Porsche said its 9-month profit fell 15% to euro4.6B ($6.4B) excluding its holdings of Volkswagen, as the global economic crisis drove demand for new cars. The Stuttgart-based luxury carmaker said sales from Aug. 1, 2008 to April 30 this year & VW's sales in the first 3 months of 2009 fell by a combined 27.6%, or 53,635 vehicles, against the same periods a year earlier. Together VW & Porsche sales came in at euro28.4B ($39.53B) for the periods. Porsche raised its stake in VW to some 51% at the beginning of 2009, & was the first time the 2 carmakers reported sales & profits jointly. Porsche said its profits were hurt by falling demand for new cars as a result of economic crisis. "In the 1st 9 months of the ongoing fiscal year, Porsche subgroup couldn