VW Financial Services raises 2016 profit guidance

HAMBURG (Reuters) - Volkswagen's Financial Services AG has hiked its guidance for 2016, citing robust business in southern Europe in the first quarter, as well as demand for mobility services such as maintenance, the carmaker said on Tuesday. Volkswagen's financing arm now expects its operating profit to be at the year-earlier level of 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion), a spokesman for Volkswagen said on Tuesday, confirming an earlier report by German news agency DPA. VW Financial Services said in March it expected to post 2016 operating profit of at least 1.7 billion euros, after it took a writedown to cover a potential decline in the residual value of cars after the diesel emissions test-rigging scandal. The Volkswagen group is due to publish financial results for the first quarter on May 31. (Reporting by Jan Schwartz; Writing by Maria Sheahan; editing by Susan Thomas)