BMW is preparing for a more difficult second half

The Munich carmaker BMW is preparing for a more difficult second half of the year after a strong increase in sales and profit in view of the lack of chips. As the bottleneck persists, the situation will become more tense, said CFO Nicolas Peter. Production restrictions and the associated effects on vehicle sales can also be expected in the second half of the year. In the first six months, annual sales increased by more than 28 percent to almost 55.4 billion euros. The profit multiplied to more than 7.6 billion euros. In the second quarter alone, the company earned 4.8 billion euros. The fact that an EU antitrust penalty was significantly lower than originally expected also played a role in this. In the spring, BMW benefited above all from good sales of the premium cars in all regions of the world and from all brands and was able to achieve high prices. In the automobile segment, BMW achieved an operating profit of almost four billion euros between April and the end of June. In the previous year, the result was still deep red due to the measures to contain the corona pandemic. The EBIT margin in the segment reached a strong 15.8 percent. This means that BMW fared significantly better than analysts expected. In the group as a whole, the operating result is five billion euros. The quarterly profit per share is 7.23 euros. Analysts only expected 4.41 euros. For the year as a whole, the Munich-based group continues to expect to reach the upper end of the margin forecast of seven to nine percent in the auto business.