September 20, 2024

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BMW says 2021 benefit surged because it appreciated higher-margin cars all the way through chip scarcity

Spencer Platt | Getty Pictures Information | Getty Pictures

German automaker BMW AG mentioned Thursday its income and web benefit hit all-time highs in 2021, in spite of larger spending on analysis and construction associated with electrical cars.

In a preview of effects that it is going to provide at its annual assembly subsequent week, BMW mentioned its full-year web benefit jumped to twelve.46 billion euros, or kind of $13.7 billion, from simply 3.86 billion euros in 2020. Earnings jumped 12.4% yr over yr to 111.24 billion euros, or about $122.4 billion.

Each benefit and income notched data for the corporate.

The rise in BMW ‘s annual income was once pushed the old school manner: by means of larger gross sales of automobiles, SUVs and bikes. The automaker’s car deliveries, together with automobiles and SUVs, rose 8.4% from its coronavirus-challenged 2020 outcome, to simply over 2.5 million cars. That got here in spite of manufacturing disruptions associated with an ongoing world scarcity of semiconductor chips.

About 13% of the ones 2021 deliveries had been “electrified” cars, that means plug-in hybrids or absolutely electrical fashions. Gross sales of BMW Crew’s electrified cars had been simply over 328,000 in 2021, up 70% from the corporate’s 2020 outcome, however nonetheless neatly wanting EV chief Tesla’s 936,000 2021 general.

BMW is aiming to have absolutely electrical cars account for no less than part of its world deliveries by means of 2030.

The EV push is coming at a price. BMW’s analysis and construction spending, a lot of which was once all for new EV architectures and parts, rose 10.7% to six.3 billion euros. Nevertheless it remained kind of in line with 2020 when expressed as a proportion of income, about 6.2%.

BMW’s profitability additionally surged as the corporate prioritized manufacturing of its maximum successful car traces amid the chip scarcity, a just right signal for traders hoping that the corporate will have the ability to conveniently finance its transition to zero-emissions cars. The running benefit margin in BMW’s automobile phase, a broadly watched determine amongst auto analysts, rose to a wholesome 10.3% in 2021 from simply 2.7% in 2020 and four.9% in 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic roiled world industries.

Gross sales of BMW bikes rose 14.8% in 2021, to simply over 194,000. The motorbike unit’s running benefit margin rose to eight.3% from 4.5% in 2020.

“Our trade figures are evidence that we had been in a position to mix the underlying transformation and the most important funding it includes with robust operational luck in an excessively unstable setting in 2021,” mentioned Nicolas Peter, who holds a identify an identical to a U.S. corporate’s leader monetary officer at BMW. “We’re in a just right place and positive in regards to the long run.”

BMW plans to percentage a few of that hefty benefit with its shareholders. The corporate mentioned that it is going to suggest an annual dividend of five.80 euros in line with percentage, up from 1.90 euros in 2020, in addition to a brand new percentage repurchase program, at subsequent week’s annual assembly.

One after the other, BMW introduced on Thursday that it has agreed to buy Alpina, the emblem of an established builder of higher-performance variations of BMW automobiles, a few of that have been presented once in a while by the use of BMW’s personal dealership community. The Alpina logo will ultimately transform an in-house trim line for BMW, very similar to the AMG logo at rival Mercedes-Benz.

BMW will document its whole fourth-quarter and full-year effects at its annual convention for shareholders, set to start on March 16.