The Munich carmaker BMW lowers its forecast for the current year. The company announced on Tuesday in Munich that the targeted increase in sales in China was falling short of expectations. In addition, the assumptions made at the time of the semi-annual report for expected tariff reductions have not yet been fully realized. Therefore, the margin on the auto division’s earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), Bavaria’s central profitability indicator, is now expected to be 5 to 6 percent in 2025, it was said. BMW had previously assumed 5 to 7 percent.
Input tax is likely to shrink
The pre-tax result is now expected to decline slightly in the current year. Until now, BMW had forecast a profit roughly at the level of 2024. BMW’s share price fell by a good one percent in after-hours trading on the Tradegate trading platform.
Previously, BMW had reported sales plus for the first time for the first time in more than a year. In the third quarter, the group delivered 588,300 cars to its customers. That was 8.8 percent more than a year ago, as the group announced on Tuesday.
In addition to the core brand, which increased by 5.7 percent to 514,600 cars, the figures also include the daughter Mini, which increased a third to 72,400 cars, as well as the British luxury brand Rolls-Royce, which reports an increase from 13 percent to 1,304 cars.
In these calculations, however, BMW subsequently benefits from a serious problem a year ago. In the third quarter of 2024, the group had to accept a massive decline in sales of 13 percent – among other things because there were problems with the supplier Continental related brakes, which ensured a delivery block. As a result, the comparative figures from the previous year are distorted downwards. Two years ago, in the third quarter of 2023, BMW reported higher sales than currently with 621,700 cars.
BMW is now also in plus in the whole year, as Sales Manager Jochen Goller emphasizes. “The strong sales growth in Europe and America and the Mini brand are particularly gratifying.”
Strong plus in the USA – electro stagnated
In the USA, despite the tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump, the company sold 104,200 BMW and Mini cars – a whopping 24 percent more than in the same period last year.
BMW was also doing well in Germany and Europe. In the home market, the Munich team has an increase of 12 percent on almost 73,000 cars from BMW and Mini, in Europe there were a total of 239,600 cars – a good 9 percent more than a year ago.
Things look worse China from: With sales of 147,100, BMW is 0.4 percent below the figure from the same quarter of the previous year. This is all the more dramatic when you consider that the slump in the same quarter last year hit China with a loss of almost 30 percent.
Development was also weak in the area of electric cars. Here it fell by 0.6 percent to 102,900. The start of the new class, which will not be delivered until next year, could play a role here. Customers may be waiting for the significantly more developed vehicles.