The company issued a de facto profit warning because of the costs of repairing vehicles to comply with pollution standards.

The statement was the carmaker's first admission that diesel cars outside the United States may have the software that led the Environmental Protection Agency to accuse the carmaker of deliberately evading pollution tests. Previously, the company had acknowledged only that the problem affected about 500,000 vehicles in the United States.

Volkswagen said it would set aside 6.5 billion euros, or about $7.3 billion, to cover the cost of servicing the affected vehicles "and other efforts to win back the trust of our customers." The money would be booked in the third quarter, Volkswagen said.