According to an analysis, German car manufacturers suffered a setback in international comparison at the beginning of the year. “With a drop in sales of 1.7 percent and a drop in profits by a quarter, the three German car companies performed significantly worse overall than the majority of their competitors,” said the auditing and consulting company EY on Wednesday.
Taken together Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz therefore has sales of around 148 billion euros. That was still the second highest value in a first quarter since the study was conducted. For the analysis, EY evaluated the financial figures of the world’s 16 largest car manufacturers. The survey has been around since 2011.
Compared to the same period last year, sales for all companies rose by 3.9 percent to around 493 billion euros in the first quarter. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) were around 33.8 billion euros – 0.7 percent higher than a year earlier. Car manufacturers in particular came out on top with a profit increase of around 87 percent and sales growth of 17 percent Japan on: This was due to the ongoing decline in the value of the yen, which makes Japanese products cheaper abroad and leads to exchange rate gains.
Kia is the most profitable
Profitability fell slightly: the average EBIT margin, which compares operating profit to sales, was 7.4 percent. Kia was the most profitable car company with 13.1 percent. The South Koreans lead the ranking ahead of BMW (11.1 percent) and Mercedes (10.8 percent). The latter was the most profitable group in 2023 as a whole Stellantis. The Opel-Mother did not provide any information about profits in the first year. The margin of the electric car manufacturer Tesla fell from 11.4 to 5.5 percent compared to the previous year.
According to EY market observer Constantin Gall, the headwind for the automotive industry is increasing. “In the first quarter, new car sales from the top car companies fell slightly, demand is nowhere near pre-pandemic levels,” he said. From January to March, manufacturers sold around 15.5 million cars, around three million vehicles less than in the first quarter of 2019.
According to Gall, a quick recovery is currently not foreseeable: the economy is weakening, geopolitical tensions and wars are causing great uncertainty in many regions. “In addition, the unclear development of e-mobility is slowing it down: both in Europe and in the USA “Sales of electric cars are disappointing,” he said. The question of which technologies will prevail appears to be relatively open again, meaning that the industry will have to invest in several types of drive in parallel.
In addition, the Chinese car market is developing difficultly, at least for Western manufacturers. “Local providers are gaining market share, especially in the electrical segment. The cut-throat competition is brutal,” said Gall. While the car companies increased their car sales in Europe by 3 percent and in the USA by almost 6 percent, they recorded… China a minus of 2 percent. After all: German manufacturers recorded a slight increase in China. In the first quarter, the country accounted for 33.2 percent of its global new vehicle sales.